On 20 September 2001, in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American people, President George W. Bush declared a ‘war on terror’. The concept of the ‘war on terror’ has proven to be both an attractive and a potent rhetorical device. It has been adopted and elaborated upon by political leaders...

In the Northern Territory, Australia, ballot papers for territory elections depict candidates’ photographs. The authors exploit this unusual electoral feature by looking at the effect that candidates’ beauty and skin color has on voting patterns. The results for beauty are mixed, but they find strong evidence that skin color matters. In electorates with a small...

Under Indonesia's anti-poverty program, IDT, the government provided selected poor villages with grants of the same value, regardless of population size. Exploiting the variation in per household grant value that is caused by this program design, the author estimates the returns to public grants, which are designated for investment loans. Results show that the returns...

This report draws on the results of the Australian Election Study surveys – comprehensive post-election surveys of political opinion that have asked the same questions and used the same methodology – for the period 1987 to 2007. Each of the AES surveys contains questions relating to the role of media and media exposure; general political...

Which electorates receive targeted funding, and does targeted funding swing votes? To answer these questions, the author analyzes four discretionary programs funded by the Australian federal government during the 2001-2004 election cycle. Controlling for relevant demographic characteristics of the electorate, those electorates held by the governing coalition received a larger share of discretionary funding, and...