Portmann Marco

Political Integration of Foreigners How does foreigners suﬀrage impact natives’ attitudes? Publication Archived

Today's world is characterized by globalization and international mobility,yet most democratic participation rights are still tied to traditional forms of citizenship. As a consequence, non-citizen are the largest group without franchise. W...

How Lobbying Affects Representation: Results for Majority-Elected Politicians Publication Archived

Combining referendum results with parliamentary votes of proportionally-elected politicians ofthe Swiss Lower House of Parliament, Giger and Klüver (American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming) find that sectional and cause interest...

Income and policy choices: Evidence from parliamentary decisions and referenda Publication Archived

We analyze political representation of preferences of different income groups by matching referendum outcomes for low, middle,and high-income voters with individual legislators' decisions on identical policy proposals. Results indicate that...

Military careers of politicians matter for national security policy Publication Archived

Do politicians with a military background decide differently on military affairs? We investigate the informative institutional setting of the Swiss conscription army. Politicians who served in the military have a higher probability of accep...

The Power of Religious Organizations in Human Decision Processes: Analyzing Voting Behavior Publication Archived

In Switzerland, two key church institutions - the Conference of Swiss Bishops(CSB) and the Federation of Protestant Churches (FPC) - make public recommendations on how to vote for certain referenda. We leverage this unique situation to dire...

Full transparency of politicians' actions does not increase the quality of political representation Publication Archived

We identify the impact of transparency in political decision -making on thequality of political representation with a difference- in-difference strategy. The quality of political representation is measured by observed divergence of parliame...

Voting against the separation of powers between legislature and administration Publication Archived

We compare the votes of parliamentary representatives and their constituents on a popular initiativethat directly aimed at weakening the separation of powers in 1922 in Switzerland. We analyze whether the strength of individual ties to the ...

Testing the Median Voter Model and Moving Beyond its Limits: Do Characteristics of Politicians Matter? Publication Archived

We exploit a natural measure of congruence between politicians and theirconstituency' bnm bnnb fgvhjuis preferences to directly quantify the extent of legislative shirking and evaluate the mechanism of the median voter model. The median vot...

Voters elect politicians who closely matched their preferences Publication Archived

What determines political candidates? election prospects? We match roll call votes of candidates forthe majority elected upper house of parliament who were previously in the lower house with revealed preferences of their constituency. There...

Preference Representation and the Influence of Political Parties in Majoritarian vs. Proportional Systems: An Almost Ideal Empirical Test Publication Archived

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in politicalrepresentation. According to conventional expectations, politicians’ party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected by proportion...

Do Female Representatives Adhere More Closely to Citizens’ Preferences Than Male Representatives? Publication Archived

We analyze whether female or male members of parliament adhere moreclosely to citizens’ revealed preferences with quasi-experimental data. By matching individual representatives’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with real refere...

Evaluating the Median Voter Model’s Explanatory Power Publication Archived

We match individual senators’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24real referenda decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model’s quality with revealed ...

Parliaments as Condorcet Juries: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Representation of Majority Preferences Publication Archived

In parliament, individual representatives vote with a certain probability according to theirconstituents’ preferences. Thus, the mechanism of the Condorcet Jury Theorem can be fruitfully applied to parliamentary representation: The probab...

Quantifying Parliamentary Representation of Constituents› Preferences with Quasi-Experimental Data Publication Archived

We assess the effect of constituents’ preferences on legislators’ decisions within a quasiexperimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, citizens and legislators reveal their preferences for legislative proposals. We match roll ...

District Magnitude and Representation of the Majority?s Preferences: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Popular and Parliamentary Votes Publication Archived

Members of parliament have more effective incentives to cater for themajority?s preferences when they are elected in districts with few seats in parliament rather than in districts with many seats. We empirically investigate this hypothesis...