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Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76

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Does globalization affect public perceptions of ‘Who in

power can make a difference’? Evidence from 40
countries, 1996e2006
Jack Vowles
Department of Politics, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

Abstract

Economic globalization is often said to promote policy convergence between political parties in government in democratic
states, and thus substantially constrain voters’ choice options. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
(CSES) modules one and two, this paper tests whether and how cross-national differences in exposure to the international economy
may influence the voter perceptions that are needed to underpin expectations of differences between alternative governments, one of
the main preconditions for the effective practice of responsible party government. It identifies two dimensions of economic glob-
alization, trade dependence and international financial integration (IFI), and uncovers initial evidence that IFI appears to encourage
pessimism about ‘making a difference’. However, this appears to be an artefact of a contingent association between powerful
presidential systems and low levels of financial globalization.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Globalization; International political economy; Political parties; Democratization

1. Introduction Changes in the governance of the international

In an effective democracy, those with political power
and governmental authority should be willing and able
to implement policies different from those of their com-
petitors for office and thus ‘make a difference’. Voters
must be able to hold parties in government responsible
for those policies, and deliver judgement at the next
election. Governments must be strong enough to
impose their policies despite institutional and economic
constraints. Responsible party government is one of the
most important elements of democratic theory. Without
the ability to ‘make a difference’, those in power would
be unable to act according to its principles.
E-mail address: j.vowles@exeter.ac.uk
economy over the last twenty years have intensified
doubts about the ability of political leaders to ‘make
a difference’. It is asserted that within democratic coun-
tries economic globalization leads to policy conver-
gence between alternative governments, regardless of
the preferences of voters. The findings of some research
on comparative public policy have been said to ‘make
the model of responsible party government appear in-
creasingly anachronistic’, and conclude that ‘it is clear
no modern party system lives up to the Westminster
model advocated by scholars in the past’ (Caul and
Gray, 2000, p. 236). However there are equally strong
claims to the contrary. Carles Boix accepts that global-
ization has ‘forced the convergence of national macro-
economic policies’ (also see Cusack, 2000). He goes to

0261-3794/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2007.11.003
64 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
argue that globalization has, on the other hand, ‘magni-
fied the role of (competing) supply-side economic
strategies and intensified the importance of parties and
partisan agency in the selection of those policies’
(Boix, 1998, p. 4).
Another strand of scepticism centres on the effects of
institutions. By constitutional design or contingency,
many governments may be too weak to act in accord
with the theory of responsible party government. In the
United States, due to the separation of powers, federal-
ism, and relatively weak political parties, responsible
party government has been an aspiration in opposition
to a dominant theory of pluralism (Schattschneider,
1942; APSA, 1950; Ranney, 1962). Elsewhere, in coun-
tries with multi-party politics, coalition governments or
constitutions that divide power in other ways, clear party
responsibility is often said to be too hard for voters to
assign. Even in countries where single-party govern-
ments can impose their policies with few constraints,
economic theories of democracy predict that two com-
peting parties will converge in their policies on the
median voter, thus limiting policy differentiation.
Some empirical studies also suggest that voters may
not be sufficiently informed about policy differences
between parties to act according to the theory. In other
words, they may not know enough about the differences
between those who aspire for power to make informed
choices.
Against these claims, some argue that who is in power
can make a difference, and therefore responsible party
government may still be possible. In circumstances of
coalition government, multi-party systems, and under
proportional representation, where pre-election coali-
tion agreements exist, or where the party system is
made up of groups of parties clustered on the left or right
that constrain government formation to parties on one
side or the other, votes can deliver a mandate as
effectively as in other circumstances (Powell, 2000,
pp.73e74; Gallagher et al., 2000, p. 341). Rejoinders
have also been made against the median voter conver-
gence claims of economic theorists of economy (Adams,
2001; Warwick, 2004), and claims that voters lack
sufficient information (Lupia and McCubbins, 1998).
This paper addresses empirically one aspect of this
major debate. Cross-nationally, where the effects of
globalization are strongest, do citizens perceive the con-
straints that are claimed to exist? If so, those constraints
should lower people’s expectations of differences be-
tween competing political leaders when they alternate
in government. It might or might not be the case that
such citizen perceptions were in accord with real con-
straints on governments, if those could be established.
Those perceptions themselves would be enough to con-
firm a major thrust of the arguments. Put most simply,
do differences between degrees of globalization across
time and space shape citizen perceptions about whether
those in power can ‘make a difference’?
First, this paper outlines some relevant strands of nor-
mative and empirical democratic theory, and their insti-
tutional implications. There is good evidence about the
effects of institutions on political behaviour and political
attitudes and therefore they also need to be included as
controls in any such analysis. Second, the paper reviews
the implications of the globalization literature and dis-
cusses appropriate empirical indicators of the process.
The third section of the paper outlines the data, variables,
and hypotheses to be tested. The fourth section analyses
the data, and the fifth section summarizes the findings.
2. Democratic theory and responsible
party government
To somewhat simplify, there are three main schools
of democratic theory that address the problems and
issues associated with representative and responsible
government: populism, democratic elitism, and plural-
ism. In terms of a minimum model of responsible party
government, populists and democratic elitists tend to
concur on the following two preconditions. In govern-
ment political parties should be willing and able to
implement policies different from those of their com-
petitors. Voters must be able to hold parties in govern-
ment responsible for those policies, and therefore be
able to deliver judgement at the next election. But of
course they can only do so if they perceive that there
are differences between the alternative governments
that are the contenders for power.
Meanwhile pluralists argue that institutions such as
the separation of powers and multi-party systems will
affect the potential for responsible party government.
If so, they are likely to mediate other effects such as
globalization, perhaps hiding them from a cursory
analysis. The most fully elaborated empirical model
of variations in democratic institutions is still that of
Arend Lijphart (1984, 1999). Lijphart’s ideal types of
‘consensus’ versus ‘majoritarian’ democracies, with
a continuum between them, are defined by two dimen-
sions: ‘executive-parties’ and ‘federal-unitary’. The
executive-parties dimension defines the degree that
a party, elected to office, may exert power without insti-
tutional constraint. The greater the degree of executive
dominance, the clearer will be the responsibility of
governments for their actions and policies (Powell,
1989; 2000, pp. 50e51).
 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
The weaker the strength of the executive over other
actors, the more difficult it should be to hold govern-
ments to account in terms of the responsible party
government model. Considering the ‘federal-unitary’
dimension, presidential systems could enhance percep-
tions of making a difference if they are strong, but
diminish them if they are weak and powers are constitu-
tionally separated. Federalism could also diminish
perceptions of policy differences in national elections
if significant powers are held by a lower tier of govern-
ment. Expectations about the effects of institutions will
be further elaborated in the section discussing the oper-
ational of variables.
3. Globalization and policy convergence
Some assert that a globalized world has entered
a new era of policy convergence and constraint on gov-
ernment policy-making (for example, Ohmae, 1990;
Friedman, 1999). Others argue that the process is not
new and its effects overplayed (for example, Weiss,
1998). Almost certainly, most assume that globaliza-
tion constrains democratic choices. Neo-liberals claim
‘there is no alternative’, and even advocates of the
so-called ‘third way’ concede that alternatives for
social democracy are much more limited than in the
past. Yet arguments about policy convergence and con-
straint are far from original, and are at least half a cen-
tury old.
In 1957, Anthony Downs’ influential economic the-
ory of democracy posited that parties would converge
on appeals to the median voter (Downs, 1957; Adams,
2001). Kirchheimer (1966) identified the rise of the
‘catch-all party’ and the demise of programmatic poli-
tics while Daniel Bell announced the end of ideology
(Bell, 1960). Early work in comparative public policy
downplayed the role of political parties in the shaping
of major patterns of public policy and pointed instead
to ‘modernization’ and demographic changes (Wilen-
sky, 1975). Marxist theory stressed the dominance of
the capitalist system and the limits it placed, in particu-
lar, on governments of the centre-left. Meta-analytical
analysis of the literature since the 1970s indicates that
the weight of analysis still throws in doubt the impor-
tance of left-right differences in government composi-
tion on policy decisions, although its failure to take
into account Christian democratic parties calls its find-
ings into question (Imbeau et al., 2001).
Yet most ‘common sense’ discourse still rests on the
assumption that the alternation of political parties in
government has policy consequences. Those who find
evidence that party politics matters specify their models
65
in ways that bring out political effects (Hicks et al.,
1989; Alvarez et al., 1991; Hicks and Swank, 1992;
Blais et al., 1993; Garrett, 1998); those seeking to find
the opposite are less prone to do so (for example,
Pampel and Williamson, 1989). In general, this litera-
ture indicates that politics matters at the margins, but
significantly so, and more in certain circumstances
than others. If domestic policy autonomy has declined
under the impact of globalization, it has done so in
some ways, but not others, and where options have
narrowed this may simply mean abandonment of policy
mechanisms that do not deliver the outcomes their
proponents wish, particularly in the long term (Swank,
1998,2002; Garrett and Mitchell, 2001; Wolf, 2004).
For example, empirical evidence from the 1950s to
the present indicates that the most trade dependent
countries tend to have the biggest governments and
the most generous provision of social programmes
(Cameron, 1978; Rodrik, 1998). Thus the usual argu-
ment that trade dependence should force policies to
converge on a small government and residual social pol-
icy is unconvincing. Trends of government expenditure
in most advanced democracies are, if anything, still
slightly upward (Economist, 2001; Castles, 1998, p.
118; Garrett and Mitchell, 2001). Meanwhile, differ-
ences in the role of government in the economy between
countries and over time suggests another supplementary
hypothesis: the greater the role of government in the
economy, the more likely that voters could perceive
that who controls government will matter.
Meanwhile promotion of economic competitiveness,
productivity, efficiency, and export growth has become
an increasingly important part of policy debate since the
1970s. Governments, if anything, are evaluated more
than in the past on their ability to stimulate and encour-
age export growth by ‘supply-side strategy’, over which
there remains significant disagreement between left and
right (Boix, 1998). The higher the level of trade depen-
dence, the more likely citizens could perceive a greater
need for political leaders who understand how govern-
ments can find an optimal balance between social
protection and economic growth. If their economies
prosper and grow, such leaders may be given electoral
credit and ‘who is in power’ may be seen to ‘make
a difference’.
Of course, larger governments may be found in more
trade-dependent countries for structural reasons. Voters
in those countries could still perceive constraints and
thus fewer options between alternative policies. This
seems to be the case when seen through the lens of
economic voting, as some research has found that voters
in more trade dependent countries do ascribe less
66 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
responsibility to governments’ economic performances
(Hellwig, 2001; Hellwig and Samuels, 2007).
However, much analysis uses trade dependence as
a proxy for the economic globalization process in
general. Economic globalization has at least one other
major dimension, the extent of international financial
integration (IFI). Investment stocks and flows are of
substantial significance in any consideration of global-
ization. So far the evidence suggests that dependence
on foreign capital does not necessarily have the con-
straining effects on governments that have been
predicted (Swank, 1998; Garrett and Mitchell, 2001).
Yet in terms of public perceptions, foreign investment
may be more likely to have implications in tune with
a disempowerment or constraint thesis. Again, there is
a public discourse about importance of foreign invest-
ment for economic growth. While external investment,
both internal and external, can be seen to foster
economic growth, the discourse also contains strong
elements implying loss of local control. Transfer of own-
ership to foreign owners of key assets such as land or
major industries can be highly visible and controversial,
particularly if the state is at the same time divesting itself
of assets, and foreign owners purchase them. Encourag-
ing inward investment puts governments under pressure
to accommodate the needs of those bringing in funds,
and companies investing elsewhere gain more autonomy
from the government of their home country.
To what extent, however, might one expect citizens
of mass publics to develop political attitudes and behav-
iours generated by such debates? Scepticism about the
ability of members of mass publics to have opinions
and make judgements founded on sufficient information
is subversive of all schools of democracy, even
democratic elitism. Even though that model takes the
problem into account, voters must still be able to assess
the qualities and judgements of alternative competitors
for office. Of course, a high level of globalization might
affect perceptions and behaviours without being identi-
fied as such. People may lose their jobs, or fear losing
them, or simply fail to get wage increases without put-
ting the blame on globalization, but nevertheless
become pessimistic about the ability of politicians to
‘make a difference’. But do the effects of globalization
go beyond those directly affected? How much knowl-
edge do voters in general have about globalization
and its effects in their respective countries?
The doubts raised by these questions can be
countered by applying the concept of ‘low information
rationality’ (Popkin, 1991). The content of a party man-
ifesto or series of commitments is publicized during an
election campaign, the issues associated with a mass
referendum can be communicated to voters, and both
can be framed in terms of some relatively simple ideas.
Ideas about the effects of globalization may be similarly
disseminated. While they are rarely communicated to
voters as intensively as party policies may be in an elec-
tion campaign, public discourses about globalization
containing ‘elite cues’ and other ‘political heuristics’
may give voters a general sense of how their country
fits into the international economy, and what that could
mean. If so, one would expect to find some evidence of
this in public perceptions of beliefs about whether or not
who is in power makes a difference.
4. Testing the claims: data, variables
and hypotheses
A summary of the main characteristics of the
variables defined below is found in Table 1. Most of
the data used is from the Comparative Study of Elec-
toral Systems (CSES), a collection of collaborators
from national election studies around the world. In
each election study, all or at least a large part of the
same module of questions is asked of respondents.
Modules 1 and 2 provide data applicable to this analy-
sis, from 40 countries and 72 elections held between
1996 and 2006 (for details, see Table 2 and Appendix
A). It is augmented by country-level data from other
sources, acknowledged below.
4.1. Dependent variable
The question tapping into the globalization hypothe-
sis and thus forming the dependent variable is: ‘If ONE
means that it makes a (big) difference who is in power,
and FIVE means that it doesn’t make a (or ‘any’) differ-
ence who is in power, where would you place your
view? Those ‘in power’ can be expected to be more
constrained in their ability to ‘make a difference’ if
the design of political institutions and the shape of the
party system reduce their power, and these effects will
need to be controlled to most clearly identify the effects
of globalization that might similarly be seen to limit the
power of governments.
The question has a complication. In module one of
the CSES, it was asked without ‘big’ or ‘any’ as brack-
eted in the text above. In module two, an initial version
of the questionnaire added those words. About halfway
through the period in which the fieldwork was being
carried out as various countries held elections, the text
of the module provided to collaborators was changed
back to the form of module one. The analysis that
follows will estimate the effects of this difference and
 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76 67

Table 1
Variable types, minima and maxima, and sources ( indicates variable logged)
Type Maximum Minimum rho Source
Difference in power Difference No difference
Original values Ordinal 1 2 3 4 5 CSES
New scale Ordinal 1 0.75 0.5 0.25 0
Year Scale 2006 1996 0.09 CSES
Globalization
Trade dependence ((exports þ imports)/GDP, %) Scale 173 17.06 0.01 Penn 6.2
International financial integration Scale 0.35 13.08 0.11 IMF
(foreign assets þ liabilities/GDP)
Economic and social
Population, mill, current year Scale 295.41 0.28 0.06 Penn 6.2
Real GDP/capita, current year Scale $58034 $3585 0.11 Penn 6.2
% Change from mean in GDP/capita, Scale 11.4 0 0.05 Penn 6.2
average previous five years
% Government component share/real Scale 41.17 8.07 0.13 Penn 6.2
GDP, current year
Institutional
PR 1, majoritarian 0 Scale 1 0 0.04
Coalition 1, one party cabinet 0 Dummy 1 0 0.03
Effective N parliamentary parties Scale 75 2 0.07 DPI
Consensus 1, majoritarian 0 Scale 1 0 0.04 3 previous vars
Democracy since 1973 Scale 1 0 0.09 Freedom House
Federalism 1, unitary 0 Dummy 1 0 0.07 CSES
Presidential power Scale 24 0 0.08 Various
Election type
Presidential election 1, not 0 Dummy 1 0 0.03 CSES
Combined presidential/legislative 1, not 0 Dummy 1 0 0.01 CSES
(reference¼parliamentary elections)
Micro
Winner Dummy 1 0 0.08 CSES
Loser Dummy 1 0 0.04 CSES
University education Dummy 1 0 0.04 CSES

control for it. Module three of the CSES will consis-
tently use the ‘big/any’ version. For purpose of analysis,
the question has been re-scaled, its maximum remaining
as one, representing difference in power, and its mini-
mum to zero representing no difference in power. One
other aspect of the question merits emphasis: the focus
on ‘who is in power’ may frame responses in a personal
mode. For that reason, in systems where power is
personalized in the form of strong Presidencies, one
might expect effects on responses in the direction of
difference.
4.2. Key independent variables, controls,
and hypotheses
4.2.1. Globalization
Trade dependence: the sum of exports and imports as
a percentage of GDP, averaged over the past five years.
This data was sourced from the Penn World Tables, 6.2
(Heston et al., 2006), and is downloadable from http://
pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt_index.php.
Hypothesis 1: Trade dependence will be associated
with a greater level of perception that ‘who is in power
makes a difference’
Ratio of the sum of foreign assets and liabilities to
GDP (RFAL/GDP), averaged over the past five years.
The RFAL/GDP is a good summary measure of the ex-
tent of countries’ degree of financial integration into the
international economy (Lane and Milesi-Ferretti, 2006,
p. 35), and can be downloaded from the International
Monetary Fund website, http://www.imf.org/external/
pubs/ft/wp/2006/data/wp0669.zip and more accessibly
at http://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/06-69.html (ac-
cessed August 28 2007). It incorporates both portfolio
and foreign direct investment (FDI) data. While the
latter implies more direct control over assets, the total
68 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76

Table 2
Comparison of means: who is in power makes a (big) difference at 63 country/elections, 1996e2006 (difference 1, no difference 0, five-point scale)
Country Year Who in power Country Year Who in power
makes difference makes difference
Big difference Difference
Netherlands 2002 0.78 Romania 2004 0.77
Brazil 2002 0.76 Lithuania 1997 0.76
Spain 2004 0.75 Sweden 1998 0.76
Spain 2000 0.74 Poland 1997 0.76
Spain 1996 0.75 Sweden 2002 0.75
Australia 2004 0.68 Slovenia 2004 0.75
Denmark 2001 0.66 Denmark 1998 0.74
Portugal 2005 0.66 Israel 2003 0.74
Poland 2001 0.65 New Zealand 1996 0.73
Finland 2003 0.65 Mexico 2000 0.73
Bulgaria 2001 0.64 Switzerland 1999 0.73
Portugal 2002 0.63 Mexico 1997 0.72
New Zealand 2002 0.63 United States 2004 0.72
Germany 2002 0.62 Kyrgyzstan 2005 0.71
Ireland 2002 0.61 Hungary 1998 0.70
Norway 2001 0.60 Peru 2001 0.70
Czech Republic 2002 0.60 Chile 2005 0.70
Japan 2004 0.57 Albania 2005 0.70
Canada 2004 0.55 Australia 1996 0.68
Belgium 2003 0.54 Germany 1998 0.68
France 2002 0.53 United Kingdom 1997 0.68
Italy 2006 0.67
Difference United States 1996 0.66
Ukraine 1998 0.85 Switzerland 2003 0.65
Slovenia 1996 0.84 Korea 2000 0.64
Czech Republic 1996 0.83 Belgium 1999 0.63
Belarus 2001 0.83 Korea 2004 0.62
Iceland 1999 0.83 Canada 1997 0.61
Russia 1999 0.83 Taiwan 2001 0.60
Israel 1996 0.82 Taiwan 1996 0.60
Romania 1996 0.81 Mexico 2003 0.59
Russia 2004 0.80 Chile 1999 0.58
Peru 2000 0.78 Peru 2006 0.58
Iceland 2003 0.78 Taiwan 2004 0.57
Norway 1997 0.77 Japan 1996 0.48
Hungary 2002 0.77 United Kingdom 2005 0.48
Netherlands 1998 0.77 Philippines 2004 0.47

of the two connotes a country’s overall vulnerability to
outside economic forces.
Hypothesis 2: The extent of financial integration into
the international economy will be associated with
a lower level of perception that ‘who is in power makes
a difference’.
Some alternative globalization indicators were con-
sidered. There are currently two sets of constructed
indicators of economic, social, and political globaliza-
tion (Kearney, 2004; Lockwood and Redoano, 2005).
Kearney covers 62 countries across four dimensions:
economic, political, technological, and personal contact,
but reports no data for some countries in the CSES data-
set, and the period covers only 1998e2003. The eco-
nomic dimension separates out trade and foreign direct
investment data, but the former is restricted to exports
and the latter to inflows of investment. For more infor-
mation see http://www.atkearney.com/main.taf?p¼5,4,
1,127,1 (accessed September 19 2007). Lockwood and
Redoano (2005) provide a more theorized and sophisti-
cated dataset, with indicators for economic, political,
and social integration, but do not disaggregate their eco-
nomic data, except by their inclusion of foreign stocks
and flows under ‘social’ and FDI and trade under ‘eco-
nomic’. They also control for different population bases
and other ‘fixed characteristics’, with the consequence
 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
that their indicators reflect ‘globalization effort’ rather
than the extent of globalization itself, to which small
countries are inevitably more open. For more informa-
tion see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/index/
(accessed September 19, 2007).
4.3. Economic and social
Some economic and social variables were also
merged into the dataset as potential control variables and
sources of supplementary hypotheses. All are sourced
from the Penn World Tables 6.2. They were; population
in millions, current year; real GDP per capita, current
year; absolute difference in change in economy and
mean over all countries in dataset (þ2.5%), average
previous five years; and % government component
share/real GDP, current year. In particular, one expects
that: as smaller countries will be more vulnerable to
globalization, their citizens should perceive less ability
for politicians to make a difference; where the economy
either grows or fails to grow compared to growth interna-
tionally, citizens may perceive more potential for politi-
cians to make a difference: and the larger the role of
government in the economy, the more likely people
will perceive the potential for difference.
4.4. Institutional
Proportional representation systems score 1, major-
itarian systems score 0, and mixed or semi-proportional
systems score appropriately in between. Where a coun-
try shifts from one system to another at the election
concerned, the score is averaged between the two sys-
tems: for example, New Zealand in 1996 scores 0.5,
because it changed from a pure majoritarian to a fairly
pure PR system at that election (for more details on
scoring, see the Appendix A). Lijphart’s outcome
measure of electoral disproportionality could be an
alternative measure, but it is rejected here in favour of
an institutionally defined ‘rule’ variable. Where the
number of electoral parties is two, it is possible to
have high levels of proportionality in a majoritarian
system, but such a high level of proportionality does
not guarantee that the party with the most votes neces-
sarily gains the most seats or control of government.
Consequently, an arithmetic outcome definition of
proportional representation is rejected in favour of
one based on institutional rules (Vowles, 1999). For
more details, see Appendix A.
One-party cabinet before and after scores 1 where
both governments were made up of one party only,
0.5 if one was, and 0 if both were coalitions.
69
Legislative party fragmentation is as an average of
the legislatures before and after the election in question
and estimated using a transformation of the Herfindahl
index, from the World Bank’s Database of Political
Institutions (Beck et al., 2001). This is similar to the
denominator of the better-known effective number of
parliamentary parties formula, 1 divided by the sum
of the squares of the fractional shares of each party’s
seats. It differs in that except it includes all parties,
however small, and counts each independent member
as a party. Dividing one by the Herfindahl index pro-
duces the effective number of parliamentary parties,
subject to the difference noted above. This is then
transformed again into its natural log so as to capture
leveling off effects at higher levels of fragmentation.
Because of the extreme fragmentation of the Belarus
and Kyrgyzstan legislatures, with a dominance of inde-
pendents, no index figure could be constructed for these
countries. These three institutional variables, all associ-
ated with ‘consensus’ versus ‘majoritarian’ govern-
ment, form a scale generated from the Cronbach’s
alpha process in Stata 9.2. with a reliability of 0.72.
This ‘consensus democracy’ scale is used in the models
reported. Belarus and Kyrgyzstan’s index scores for this
index derive solely from electoral system and type of
government.
Federal state ¼ 1, unitary state ¼ 0. For fairly
obvious reasons, one might expect less perception of po-
tential for difference in federal systems, where state or
provincial governments have significant powers.
Presidentialism and presidential power. Presidential
systems provide examples of executive government as
its most powerful. The more powerful a single directly
elected leader, the more likely that citizens might feel
who is in power makes a difference, on top of possible
‘framing’ effects suggested above. Therefore the index
of presidential power developed by Shugart and Carey
(1992, p. 150) is employed here. All countries lacking
a directly elected president score 0. Others scored ac-
cording to Shugart and Carey (1992), Pennings (2000),
or from CSES macro-data and constitutional documents
(Taiwan, Ukraine, Albania, and Kyrgyzstan).
Type of election. Additional dummies also formed
variables for the type of election at which data was
collected in the various countries. Presidential elections
score as 1, all others 0, combined presidential and
legislative elections score 1, all others 0, leaving
stand-alone legislative or parliamentary elections as
the residual category. One case, Japan in 2004, was
for a stand-alone upper house election.
Democracy since 1973 is estimated by a reversed
average of the Gastil or Freedom House index over
70 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
the years since its beginnings in 1973 (http://freedom-
house.org), transformed to run between 1 and 0. This
means that the most democratic countries score high,
the least democratic high. Where countries did not exist,
as part of larger states, the index scores for those coun-
tries are applied for those years.
4.5. Micro-level variables
Winners and losers. Winners are respondents voting
for winning parties, defined as those remaining in or
entering government after the election. Losers are those
who voted for parties that were defeated, or leaving
government due to the election. One expects that
winners and loser should be more likely to perceive dif-
ferences between those who are in power.
Age, gender, university education. In particular,
people with university education are more likely to be
politically informed and thus perceiver differences
between political leaders. While questions on political
knowledge might be a more direct test and were in-
cluded in the CSES modules, too many countries have
missing data on this variable.
5. Data analysis
Table 2 displays a ranking of the ‘who is in power’
question represented by its mean for each country/elec-
tion. The average response for the ‘who is in power’
question is for ‘big difference’, 0.65, and for ‘differ-
ence’ only, 0.71.
Fig. 1 shows a correlation between the extent of IFI
and a version of the ‘who is in power’ index that adjusts
up the ‘big’ averages somewhat to ‘difference only’, on
the basis of analysis reported in Tables 3 and 4. The ef-
fect is most pronounced on a non-linear basis, when the
extent of financial integration is logged. The strength of
the correlation is reduced somewhat by two outlier
cases with very low scores on ‘who is in power makes
a difference’: Japan in 1996 and the Philippines in 2004.
A similar unreported scatter of trade dependence
with ‘who is in power makes a difference’ indicates
little or no relationship, at least at the country/election
level, although the association is marginally in the
expected direction. A scatter of the two globalization
variables across country/elections in Fig. 2 indicates
that they correlate moderately strongly at r ¼ 0.41,
with financial integration unlogged. This association
is strongly driven by three European countries, the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland. But with financial
integration logged, and the influence of these cases
reduced, the correlation is a still respectable r ¼ 0.27.
0.9
0.8
Power Makes a Difference
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
-2 -1 0 1 2 3
Log International Financial Integration
y = -0.046x + 0.713 r = -0.356
Fig. 1. Log of IFI by ‘Who is in power makes a difference’, 72 coun-
try/elections 1996e2006, 40 countries.
Nonetheless, this data confirms that economic global-
ization is multi-dimensional.
Table 1 also displays Spearman’s rank order correla-
tions between the ‘who is in power’ index and the inde-
pendent variables specified above. This data indicate
that many of the potentially relevant independent
variables have little association with ‘power makes
a difference’. In order, the strongest bivariate relation-
ships are: government share of the economy (þ); IFI,
real GDP per capita, passage of time by years, and con-
solidation of democracy (), presidential power and
percentage voting for a winning party (þ). Surprisingly,
the consensus democracy items are all positively related
to perceptions of political difference.
The next step is to specify a multivariate model to es-
timate the various effects while controlling for those of
the others (see Table 3). The ‘who is in power’ question
is measured at the individual level across a five point
scale. We cannot assume that respondents perceived
the same differences between its points: it is an ordinal
scale and therefore the appropriate form of regression to
use is ordered logit. Use of robust standard errors
adjusted for the clustering of the various country/elec-
tion cases ensures that the standard errors and statistical
significances of the macro-level variable effects are es-
timated on the basis of 72 cases, rather than somewhat
over 110,000, which is the size of the pooled individual-
level sample of useable country/election cases for CSES
modules one and two. The datasets are also weighted
Table 3
Indices of globalization and ‘Who is in power makes a difference’ (ordered logit models)
Model I (fixed country effects) Model II (random effects) Model III (random effects) Model IV (fixed country
effects)
Coeff RSE Coeff RSE Coeff RSE Coeff RSE

J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76

Macro
Election year 0.05  0.01 0.27 0.21 0.04  0.02 0.06 0.03
Big ¼ 1, not big ¼ 0 0.11 0.12 0.25 0.13 0.33  0.12 0.07 0.11
Financial integration 0.24  0.08 0.04 0.09 0.23 0.29
Trade dependence 0.00 0.00
Government economy 0.03  0.01 0.04 0.04
Consensus democracy 0.34  0.16 0.27 0.32
Democracy since 1973 0.09 0.19 1.62 1.53
Presidential power 0.02  0.01 0.67  0.14
Micro
Vote for winner 0.48  0.04 0.46  0.03
Vote outgoing party 0.52  0.08 0.52  0.06
University education 0.25  0.03 0.27  0.03
/cut1 97.61 25.43 57.06 43.31 77.87 37.53 120.25 64.48
/cut2 96.95 25.44 56.41 43.31 77.21 37.53 119.58 64.50
/cut3 95.91 25.44 55.42 43.30 76.19 37.53 118.53 64.48
/cut4 94.94 25.45 54.48 43.30 75.23 37.54 117.55 64.41
N [clusters] 113268 [72] 113268 [72] 113268 [72] 113268 [72]
Pseudo R2 0.0272 0.0080 0.0220 0.0340
Log pseudolikelihood 159496.65 162661.58 160348.55 158387.53
Significant between 0.05 and 0.01; significant below 0.01.

71
72 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76

Table 4 that no particular one will affect the findings more

Probability changes by extent of perceptions of difference than it should.
No Probability Difference In the CSES, countries and elections are not selected
difference changes at randomly, but become part of the datasets because of
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 the decisions of collaborators in each country to take
Model I effects (minemax) part. Analysis of different sets of countries and elections
Big difference ¼ 1, 0.9 0.6 1.0 0.1 2.6 at earlier stages of the data collections, replicated on
difference ¼ 0 augmented sets later on, indicates clearly that many
Model III effects (minemax) relationships and potential research findings are vulner-
Year 3.3 2.1 3.5 0.4 9.2 able to change after the additiondor subtractiondof
Log financial integration 1.1 0.6 1.1 0.2 3.1
country/election cases. (Readers are referred back to
Government economy 7.9 5.2 9.6 3.2 26.0
Consensus democracy 3.7 2.3 3.9 0.4 10.2 the outliers noted in Fig. 1 as an example). The ‘volun-
Democracy since 1973 0.7 0.4 0.8 0.1 2.1 teer’ nature of the data collection creates related further
Presidential power 4.0 2.7 5.1 1.6 13.5 problems, as not all variables specified are collected by
Vote for winner ¼ 1, 3.8 2.5 4.4 0.8 11.6 collaborators. Crucial questions and/or background var-
others ¼ 0
iables form missing values in some country-election
Vote for outgoing 3.7 2.5 4.9 1.8 13.0
party ¼ 1, others ¼ 0 cases, and those cases cannot be used, or at least, not
University education ¼ 1, 1.9 1.3 2.3 0.5 6.0 fully.
others ¼ 0 Added to the problem of non-random selection at the
Italics indicate non-significant variables. macro-level, much contextual information is lost in this
kind of cross-national research. Particular countries and
elections have too many other features that cannot be
according to the political internal weightings provided
estimated in multivariate models using a relatively
by collaborators, and where those are not available,
small number of variables. A statistical answer to these
by the actual election results on top of any other collab-
concerns is use of a fixed effects model, with dummy
orator weighting, if any, including adjusting the propor-
variables for each country but one (in this case, the
tions not voting to the figures reported. All country/
United States), the purpose of which should ‘soak up’
election cases are then further weighted to form the
contextual effects that are unknown or at least cannot
same number of weighted cases (n ¼ 1600) in order
be estimated directly. In data of this kind, fixed effects
models are likely to generate more robust and reliable
estimates, although invariably more conservative ones
3 estimating principally effects over time. Another disad-
vantage is their removal of one degree of freedom for
Log International Financial Integration

every country dummy, and they can also be less efficient

2 estimators of P-values (Green, 2003, p. 301). Arguably,
fixed effects models ‘over control’, and the full extent of
what they are controlling for is unknown and not
1 theorized. The analysis that follows employs both fixed
and random effects.
Table 3 displays a series of ordered logit regressions,
0 adding successive blocks of variables to the model.
Models I and IV have country fixed effects, including
unreported effects of dummy variables for each country,
-1 leaving the United States as the reference. The reported
models were specified after much experimentation with
alternatives. All potential variables discussed in the
-2 preceding section were tested as control variables.
0 50 100 150 200 The first model tests the effects of the variation in ques-
Trade Dependence tion wording, only controlling for country and time
effects. It finds the variation in question wording to
y = 0.006x + 0.063 r = 0.273
have insignificant effects. The second model adds the
Fig. 2. Exports and imports as a % of GDP and IFI 1996e2006. two globalization variables, with the log of financial
 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
integration remaining significant. (In an unreported
fixed effects model, it falls out of significance).
In Model III, the addition of further macro-variables
reduces the need for a fixed effects model, although one
is reported in Model IV to provide a more conservative
alternative. Trade dependence, consistently shown to
have no effects, is dropped. And with the addition of
the further controls, IFI also drops out of contention.
Over the decade that the CSES has been adminis-
tereddup to three times in some countries, twice in
mostdperceptions that ‘who is in power makes a differ-
ence’ have been in apparent decline, after controlling
for the effects of many of the variables that might be
said to explain this, including globalization. ‘Consensus
democracy’ continues to have positive, not negative
effects. The size of government and Presidential power
emerge as the key macro-level effects. In particular,
there is a high macro-level correlation between Presi-
dential power and IFI (r ¼ 0.47). One interprets
this, initially at least, as a contingent relationship be-
tween countries with powerful Presidencies and low
IFI, although some further explanation of this associa-
tion may be possible on the basis of historical and cul-
tural analysis. Winners, losers, and those with
a university degree also tend to believe that who is in
power matters. (Age and gender had completely insig-
nificant effects and therefore were not included in the
models). In the final fixed effects model the effects of
time only just move outside statistical significance at
the 0.05 level, although the size of government moves
outside significance more clearly. A strong effect for
Presidential power remains.
Table 4 gives some sense of the extent of the effects
of each variable on perceptions of ‘making a difference’,
after controlling for the effects of the others. Estimates
from Model I on countries, year, and country dummies
show that a person responding to the ‘big difference’
versus the ‘difference only’ version of the question
was 0.9% more likely to choose no difference (0 as
rescaled, 5 for the original question scale), with similar
enhancing effects at the 0.25 (4) and 0.5 (3) responses.
At the 0.75 (2) response, ‘big’ and ‘difference only’ re-
sponses were more or less equally likely, and at 1 (1),
the most difference, those who were asked the ‘big’
version of the question were 2.6% less likely to choose
that response than those who were asked the version
with ‘big’. As already indicated, these are not ‘big’
differences.
From Model 3, a person in a setting of the most
financial integration into the international economy is
1.1% more likely to see the least difference than a per-
son in the least financially integrated setting, and only
73
3.1% less likely to see the maximum difference. How-
ever, as indicated this is not sufficient to be statistically
significant across the 72 country-election cases. There
is a bigger effect when comparing the differences be-
tween perceptions in countries that differ between
high and low levels of government intervention. A
person in a low intervention country is 7.9% less likely
to see the most difference than a person in a high inter-
vention country, whereas a person in a high intervention
country is 26% more likely. The effects for Presidential
power are also substantial.
Questions remain about how robust these findings
may be. Alternative models with added controlsdwith-
out significant effects in their own right, howeverdcan
produce slightly different results, with the globalization
variables slipping in and out of significance, and some-
times changing signs. But in the majority of models, one
finds the directions indicated in Table 3.1 No doubt to
refute the null hypothesis, and with ingenuity, one could
specify a model that appeared to confirm globalization
effects. But such a model would not be robust when
compared to the vast majority of equally defensible
specifications.
6. Conclusions
The question initially posed in this paper was this:
cross-nationally, and over time, where the effects of
globalization are strongest, do citizens perceive the con-
straints that are claimed to exist and, where the effects
are weakest, do people feel more confident in political
leaders’ ability to deliver? Put most simply, do differ-
ences between degrees of globalization across time
and space shape citizen perceptions about whether
those in power can ‘make a difference’? The answer
from this analysis appears to be ‘no’, although uncer-
tainties and some ambivalences remain.
Some may remain sceptical of the importance of this
question. Yet without a belief that ‘who is in power
makes a difference’ citizens are less likely to act in
accord with the principles of responsible party govern-
ment. If there is no perceived difference between those
in office and those who offer themselves as alternatives,
it is far less likely that voters will ‘throw out the ras-
cals’. Why bother, if the alternative is only another set
1
Splitting the sample into Presidential and parliamentary systems
finds no macro-level effects at all under parliamentary systems (al-
though most of the signs are the same). The effects of size of govern-
ment, consensus democracy, and the extent of presidential power are
therefore driven most strongly by variation within Presidential
systems.
74 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
of the same kind of people? And while turnout is not the
dependent variable, a simple regression indicates that
a person believing who is in power makes a difference
is 18% more likely to vote than a person believing the
opposite. Various studies have documented and sought
to account for increased dissatisfaction, cynicism, and
disdain for politics in many of the advanced democra-
cies, and these are matters of wide concern (for exam-
ple, Dalton, 2004). Globalization is sometimes
proposed as a potential explanation for these changes,
but evidence one way or the other has been sparse.
If the passage of time is reducing expectations that
‘who is in power can make a difference’, after control-
ling for globalization and other effects, perhaps this is
evidence that an international discourse about the
effects of globalization and the declining power of
governments is having an effect across all countries, re-
gardless of the differences between them. In the final
fixed effects model the effects of time only just move
outside standard statistical significance (at 0.059), so
this inference cannot be confidently excluded.
One should acknowledge that limitations of the data
and of statistical analysis make it impossible to pre-
cisely specify most of these effects. 72 elections in 40
countries do not constitute a random sample, and the
cases represented here are unlikely to fully represent
the full range of global variation. Thus the probability
estimates in Table 4 are more illustrative than definitive.
After considerable exploration of alternatives they have
been generated by the best model that could be con-
structed: the most encompassing in terms of data, and
the most parsimonious in terms of theoretically relevant
independent variables.
The differences in initial effects for the two dimen-
sions of economic globalization confirm the value of
differentiating between them. They correlate, but not
strongly. If either indicator has any effects, it is IFI,
but they are too weak for significance in a sample of
72 country-elections. With better and more comprehen-
sive data, and more intensive analysis, one should
acknowledge that different findings could emerge.
The third module of the CSES, in the field from
2006, focuses on the concept of ‘meaningful choices’.
It asks: how wide are the choice sets presented to voters,
and can differences in those choice sets be explained by
institutional variables? This paper confirms that institu-
tions do indeed affect perceptions of political alterna-
tives, as much previous work also emphasizes. Yet the
effects for ‘consensus democracy’ are different from
expectations, and the importance of presidential power
is a new finding. In addition, except in the final and most
conservative model, the size of government has further
significant effects. Finally, there is weak evidence that
IFI, hitherto unexamined in this context, could emerge
as an influence in future investigations that can expand
the number of cases over space and time.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was prepared for
delivery at the Jubilee Conference of the Australasian
Political Studies Association, Australian National Uni-
versity, Canberra, October 2e4, 2002, and more
recently to the Comparative and Canadian Politics
Workshop, Department of Political Science, University
of British Columbia. I particularly thank Fred Cutler,
Ben Nyblade, Angela O’Mahony, and Alan Jacobs for
their comments. A much revised version was presented
at the European Consortium for Political Research Gen-
eral Conference, Pisa, September 6e8, 2007, and I
thank Michael Marsh for his helpful comments there.
Appendix A
A.1. Acknowledgements and data
Acknowledgements are due to the work of Dave
Howell, Ashley Grosse and Karen Long of the Compar-
ative Study of Electoral Systems, Center for Political
Studies, University of Michigan, its Organizing Com-
mittee, and to the collaborators who collected the data
in the various countries. The CSES dataset and full
documentation (CSES, 2003,2005) can be downloaded
from http://www.umich.edu/wnes/cses/cses.htm.
On some economic variables, the most recent data
came from 2004 or 2005. For a few countries with elec-
tions in 2006, the most recent year was chosen, or the
five-yearly average was truncated to the three or four
countries for which recent data was available.
The full list of 72 country/elections from CSES mod-
ules one and two included in this dataset can be found
listed in Table 2. Countries missing from the current
list of CSES cases either had key missing variables,
either the dependent variable ‘who is in power’, or
data making it possible to identify winners and losers.
A.2. Variable definition
Electoral system: proportional representation (PR)
systems score 1, majoritarian systems score 0, and
various degrees of semi-proportional systems score in
between. Where a country shifts from one system to an-
other at the election concerned, the score is averaged
 J. Vowles / Electoral Studies 27 (2008) 63e76
between the two systems: for example, New Zealand in
1996 scores 0.5, because it changed from a pure major-
itarian to a fairly pure PR system at that election. Japan
in 1996 is scored 0.5. It changed from SNTV to
a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system in
1996. The effects of SNTV appear to have advantaged
one large party but allowed representation from a variety
of small parties, and the MMM system appears to have
similar effects. Codings for other mixed countries
require explanation. Chile is coded at 0.25 because of
its unique system of two-member districts and the party
coordination within left and right blocs that takes place
to preserve a multi-party system. Where MMM systems
have a relatively even split between single member
districts (SMD) and PR lists, they are coded at 0.5 (Hun-
gary, Lithuania, Mexico, Taiwan, Ukraine). Where the
PR component is significantly smaller, they are coded
depending on the ratio of seats in each component.
For example, Korea scores 0.25. Spain, although techni-
cally with a PR system, does not produce proportional
outcomes because of the institutional factor of low dis-
trict magnitude, and was therefore coded at 0.5. Swit-
zerland, although normally classified as having a PR
system, elects its government by a joint sitting of two
Houses that form the Federal Assembly, one of which
is elected by two members from each canton, and forms
about 20% of the Federal Assembly. Thus Switzerland
is scored at 0.8. This formula favours the two traditional
large parties, and helped prevent a change in govern-
ment composition after the 1999 election that would
have produced a more representative government.
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