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Political Science Research Watch

POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – JULY 2010

From the American Journal of Political Science

Constituents’ Responses to Congressional Roll-Call Voting

Stephen Ansolabehere and Philip Edward Jones

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Do citizens hold their representatives accountable for policy decisions, as commonly assumed in theories of legislative politics? Previous research has failed to yield clear evidence on this question for two reasons: measurement error arising from noncomparable indicators of legislators’ and constituents’ preferences and potential simultaneity between constituents’ beliefs about and approval of their representatives. Two new national surveys address the measurement problem directly by asking respondents how they would vote and how they think their representatives voted on key roll-call votes. Using the actual votes, we can, in turn, construct instrumental variables that correct for simultaneity. We find that the American electorate responds strongly to substantive representation. (1) Nearly all respondents have preferences over important bills before Congress. (2) Most constituents hold beliefs about their legislators’ roll-call votes that reflect both the legislators’ actual behavior and the parties’ policy reputations. (3) Constituents use those beliefs to hold their legislators accountable.


The Electoral Costs of Party Loyalty in Congress

Jamie L. Carson, Gregory Koger, Matthew J. Lebo and Everett Young

July 2010

ABSTRACT

To what extent is party loyalty a liability for incumbent legislators? Past research on legislative voting and elections suggests that voters punish members who are ideologically “out of step” with their districts. In seeking to move beyond the emphasis in the literature on the effects of ideological extremity on legislative vote share, we examine how partisan loyalty can adversely affect legislators’ electoral fortunes. Specifically, we estimate the effects of each legislator’s party unity–the tendency of a member to vote with his or her party on salient issues that divide the two major parties–on vote margin when running for reelection. Our results suggest that party loyalty on divisive votes can indeed be a liability for incumbent House members. In fact, we find that voters are not punishing elected representatives for being too ideological; they are punishing them for being too partisan.


Party Identification, Issue Attitudes, and the Dynamics of Political Debate

Logan Dancey  and Paul Goren

July 2010

ABSTRACT

This article investigates whether media coverage of elite debate surrounding an issue moderates the relationship between individual-level partisan identities and issue preferences. We posit that when the news media cover debate among partisan elites on a given issue, citizens update their party identities and issue attitudes. We test this proposition for a quartet of prominent issues debated during the first Clinton term: health care reform, welfare reform, gay rights, and affirmative action. Drawing on data from the Vanderbilt Television News Archives and the 1992-93-94-96 NES panel, we demonstrate that when partisan debate on an important issue receives extensive media coverage, partisanship systematically affects–and is affected by–issue attitudes. When the issue is not being contested, dynamic updating between party ties and issue attitudes ceases.

 

Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study

Jens Großer  and Arthur Schram

July 2010

ABSTRACT

We experimentally study the impact of public opinion poll releases on voter turnout and welfare in a participation game. We find higher overall turnout rates when polls inform the electorate about the levels of support for the candidates than when polls are prohibited. Distinguishing between allied and floating voters, our data show that this increase in turnout is entirely due to floating voters. When polls indicate equal levels of support for the candidates, turnout is high and welfare is low (compared to the situation without polls). In contrast, when polls reveal more unequal levels of support, turnout is lower with than without this information, while the effect of polls on welfare is nonnegative. Finally, many of our results are well predicted by quantal response (logit) equilibrium.

 

From The British Journal of Political Science

The Political Conditionality of Mass Media Influence: When Do Parties Follow Mass Media Attention?

Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Rune Stubager

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Claims regarding the power of the mass media in contemporary politics are much more frequent than research actually analysing the influence of mass media on politics. Building upon the notion of issue ownership, this article argues that the capacity of the mass media to influence the respective agendas of political parties is conditioned upon the interests of the political parties. Media attention to an issue generates attention from political parties when the issue is one that political parties have an interest in politicizing in the first place. The argument of the article is supported in a time-series study of mass media influence on the opposition parties’ agenda in Denmark over a twenty-year period.

From The Journal of Politics

Are Governors Responsible for the State Economy? Partisanship, Blame, and Divided Federalism

Adam R. Brown

July 2010

ABSTRACT

In the United States, voters directly elect dozens of politicians: presidents, governors, legislators, mayors, and so on. How do voters decide which politician to blame for which policy outcomes? Previous research on gubernatorial approval has suggested that voters divide policy blame between governors and the president based on each office’s “functional responsibilities”–requiring that responsibilities are clear cut, which is seldom true. Using data from four surveys, I show that voters actually divide responsibility for economic conditions in a partisan manner, preferring to blame officials from the opposing party when problems arise.

 

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Partisanship, Approval, and the Duration of Major Power Democratic Military Interventions

Michael T. Koch and Patricia Sullivan

July 2010

ABSTRACT

How does the domestic political climate within democratic states affect the duration of their foreign military engagements? To answer this question we combine a rationalist model of war termination with a theory about how partisan politics affects the policy preferences of national leaders to predict the duration of democratic military interventions. Specifically, we examine how changes in a chief executive’s public approval ratings interact with partisanship to affect decisions about the timing of conflict termination. We test our expectations on a set of 47 British, French, and American cases from a new dataset of military interventions by powerful states. Our results suggest that partisanship mediates the effect of public approval on the duration of military operations initiated by powerful democratic countries. As executive approval declines, governments on the right of the political spectrum are inclined to continue to fight, while left-leaning executives become more likely to bring the troops home.


Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Issue Framing Effects

Rune Slothuus and Claes H. de Vreese

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Issue framing is one of the most important means of elite influence on public opinion. However, we know almost nothing about how citizens respond to frames in what is possibly the most common situation in politics: when frames are sponsored by political parties. Linking theory on motivated reasoning with framing research, we argue not only that citizens should be more likely to follow a frame if it is promoted by “their” party; we expect such biases to be more pronounced on issues at the center of party conflicts and among the more politically aware. Two experiments embedded in a nationally representative survey support these arguments. Our findings revise current knowledge on framing, parties, and public opinion.

Balancing, Generic Polls and Midterm Congressional Elections

Joseph Bafumi, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien

July 2010

ABSTRACT

One mystery of U.S. politics is why the president’s party regularly loses congressional seats at midterm. Although presidential coattails and their withdrawal provide a partial explanation, coattails cannot account for the fact that the presidential party typically performs worse than normal at midterm. This paper addresses the midterm vote separate from the presidential year vote, with evidence from generic congressional polls conducted during midterm election years. Polls early in the midterm year project a normal vote result in November. But as the campaign progresses, vote preferences almost always move toward the out party. This shift is not a negative referendum on the president, as midterms do not show a pattern of declining presidential popularity or increasing salience of presidential performance. The shift accords with “balance” theory, where the midterm campaign motivates some to vote against the party of the president in order to achieve policy moderation.

 

You’ve Either Got It or You Don’t? The Stability of Political Interest over the Life Cycle

Markus Prior

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Some people are more politically interested than others, but political scientists do not know how stable these differences are and why they occur. This paper examines stability in political interest. Eleven different panel surveys taken in four different countries over 40 years are used to measure stability. Several studies include a much larger number of interview waves–up to 23–than commonly used panels. The analysis empirically characterizes the stability of interest over time using a model that accounts for measurement error and a dynamic panel model. The large number of panel waves makes it possible to relax many restrictive assumptions to ensure robustness. With one exception (Germany reunification), political interest is exceptionally stable in the short run and over long periods of time. Hence, this study provides strong justification for efforts to understand how political interest forms among young people.

 

Public Opinion and Senate Confirmation of Supreme Court Nominees

Jonathan P. Kastelleca1, Jeffrey R. Laxa2 and Justin H. Phillip

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Does public opinion influence Supreme Court confirmation politics? We present the first direct evidence that state-level public opinion on whether a particular Supreme Court nominee should be confirmed affects the roll-call votes of senators. Using national polls and applying recent advances in opinion estimation, we produce state-of-the-art estimates of public support for the confirmation of 10 recent Supreme Court nominees in all 50 states. We find that greater home-state public support does significantly and strikingly increase the probability that a senator will vote to approve a nominee, even controlling for other predictors of roll-call voting. These results establish a systematic and powerful link between constituency opinion and voting on Supreme Court nominees. We connect this finding to larger debates on the role of majoritarianism and representation.

 

Short-Term Communication Effects or Longstanding Dispositions? The Public’s Response to the Financial Crisis of 2008

Neil Malhotra and Yotam Margalit

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Economic interests and party identification are two key, long-standing factors that shape people’s attitudes on government policy. Recent research has increasingly focused on how short-term communication effects (e.g., issue framing, media priming) also influence public opinion. Rather than posit that political attitudes reflect one source of considerations more than another, we argue that the two interact in a significant and theoretically predictable manner. To explore this claim, we examine the American public’s attitudes towards the government’s response to the financial crisis of 2008. We designed three survey experiments conducted on a large national sample, in which we examine the influence of (1) group-serving biases, (2) goal framing, and (3) threshold sensitivity. We find that economic standing and partisanship moderate the impact of communication effects as a function of their content. Our results demonstrate how people’s sensitivity to peripheral presentational features interacts with more fundamental dispositions in shaping attitudes on complex policy issues.

 

From Political Science and Politics

U.S. Public Opinion on Torture, 2001-2009

Paul Gronke, Darius Rejali, Dustin Drenguis, James Hicks, Peter Miller and Bryan Nakayama

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Many journalists and politicians believe that during the Bush administration, a majority of Americans supported torture if they were assured that it would prevent a terrorist attack. As Mark Danner wrote in the April 2009 New York Review of Books, “Polls tend to show that a majority of Americans are willing to support torture only when they are assured that it will ‘thwart a terrorist attack.'” This view was repeated frequently in both left- and right-leaning articles and blogs, as well as in European papers (Sharrock 2008; Judd 2008; Koppelman 2009; Liberation 2008). There was a consensus, in other words, that throughout the years of the Bush administration, public opinion surveys tended to show a pro-torture American majority.

 

Does an EMILY’s List Endorsement Predict Electoral Success, or Does EMILY Pick the Winners?

Rebecca J. Hannagan, Jamie P. Pimlott and Levente Littvay

July 2010

ABSTRACT

Women’s political action committees (PACs)–those committees founded by women to raise money for women candidates–have been and will likely continue to be an important part of American electoral politics. In this article, we investigate the impact of EMILY’s List, because it is the standard bearer of women’s PACs and is commonly cited as crucial to women’s electoral success. Empirical studies of EMILY’s List impact to date have largely assumed causal inference by using traditional linear models. We use a propensity score-matching model to leverage on causality and find that an EMILY endorsement helps some candidates and hurts others. Our findings set the stage for further and more nuanced investigations of when, where, and how EMILY’s List can enhance the likelihood of electoral success for women.


POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – JUNE 2010

From Political Behavior

 

Does Economic
Inequality Depress Electoral Participation? Testing the Schattschneider
Hypothesis

Frederick Solt

June 2010

Abstract  

Nearly a half-century ago, E.E. Schattschneider wrote that
the high abstention and large differences between the rates of electoral
participation of richer and poorer citizens found in the United States
were caused by high levels of economic inequality. Despite increasing
inequality and stagnant or declining voting rates since then, Schattschneider’s
hypothesis remains largely untested. This article takes advantage of the
variation in inequality across states and over time to remedy this oversight.
Using a multilevel analysis that combines aspects of state context with
individual survey responses in 144 gubernatorial elections, it finds that
citizens of states with greater income inequality are less likely to vote and
that income inequality increases income bias in the electorate, lending
empirical support to Schattschneider’s argument.

Taking Threat Seriously: Prejudice, Principle, and
Attitudes Toward Racial Policies

 Christina Suthammanont , David A.
M. Peterson , Chris T. Owens  and Jan E.
Leighley

 June 2010

 ABSTRACT  

Drawing from group theories of
race-related attitudes and electoral politics, we develop and test how anxiety
influences the relative weight of prejudice as a determinant of individuals’
support for racial policies. We hypothesize that prejudice will more strongly
influence the racial policy preferences of people who are feeling anxious than
it will for people who are not. Using an experimental design we manipulate
subjects’ levels of threat and find significant treatment effects, as hypothesized.
We find that individuals’ racial policy attitudes are partially conditional on
their affective states: individuals who feel anxious report less support for
racial policies than those individuals who do not feel anxious, even when this
threat is stimulated by non-racial content. More broadly, we conclude that
affect is central to a better understanding of individuals’ political attitudes
and behaviors.

 

 

From Political Research Quarterly

 

Gender and the
Perception of Knowledge in Political Discussion

Jeanette Morehouse Mendez  and Tracy Osborn

June 2010

ABSTRACT

Differences in knowledge about politics between men and
women have the potential to affect political discussion. We examine
differences in the perception of political knowledge between men
and women and the effects these differences have on how often men
and women talk about politics. We find both men and women perceive
women to be less knowledgeable about politics and men to be more
knowledgeable, regardless of the actual level of knowledge each
discussion partner holds. This perceptual knowledge gap could have
ramifications for discussion as political participation, since
people turn to those they perceive to be experts to gather political
information.

The Impact of
Descriptive Representation on Women’s Political Engagement: Does Party Matter?

Beth Reingold and Jessica Harrell

June 2010

ABSTRACT

Recent research raises doubts about whether the presence of women
contesting or occupying prominent public office enhances women’s political
engagement. Taking into account both gender and party congruence
between politicians and constituents, the authors find that it is
primarily female candidates of the same party who enhance women’s
interest in politics. The stronger impact of party-congruent (over
party-incongruent) female candidates can be attributed to either
greater visibility or agreement on substantive issues. Party
matters, but rather than obscuring the role of gender in electoral
politics, it enhances our understanding of how, or under what
conditions, it works.

Reducing the Costs of Participation: Are
States Getting a Return on Early Voting?

Joseph D. Giammo and Brian J. Brox

June 2010

ABSTRACT

The authors address the puzzle of why governments have implemented methods
of early voting when those methods appear not to have an effect on
turnout. Using an aggregate analysis, the authors find that early
voting seems to produce a short-lived increase in turnout that
disappears by the second presidential election in which it is
available. They also address whether the additional costs to
government are worth the negligible increase in participation. They
conclude that these reforms merely offer additional convenience for
those already likely to vote.

Balance or
Dominance? Party Competition in Congressional Politics

Suzanne M. Robbins and Helmut Norpoth

June 2010

ABSTRACT

With a pioneering application of probability models in political science,
Stokes and Iversen established “the existence of forces restoring
party competition.” Whatever the margin of victory in a given
election, the partisan vote subsequently tends to return to the
point of equal division. The authors introduce an expanded test of
electoral equilibrium that allows for effects of major realignments
and regional differences, using congressional elections since 1828.
They find that the vote division gravitates to the mean but that the
mean vote, in most periods of American history and in several
regions, departs significantly from the point of equal division and
in some instances is prone to a pronounced drift. Hence, during much
of their lifetime, many Americans do not experience, in
congressional elections, party competition that gives the opposition
much of a chance to win.

The Electoral
Benefits of Distributive Spending

Jeffrey Lazarus and Shauna Reilly

ABSTRACT

Prior studies search for evidence that distributive spending influences
Congress members’ vote shares but find limited evidence. The authors
argue that Democratic and Republican members each benefit from
different types of distributive projects. Democrats benefit from
delivering spending projects (what most people think of as
“pork”) to their constituents, while many Republican
members benefit from delivering contingent liabilities (in which the
federal treasury underwrites a private entity’s financial risk).
Empirical tests using data from U.S. House elections between 1984
and 2002 generally confirm these hypotheses, with one exception:
only Republicans in relatively conservative districts gain from contingent
liabilities. This result is further explored in the text.

Carving Voters Out: Redistricting’s
Influence on Political Information, Turnout, and Voting Behavior

Jonathan Winburn and Michael Wagner

June 2010

ABSTRACT

This article examines how the splitting of counties into multiple congressional
districts affects citizens’ abilities to recall House candidates,
turnout, roll off their congressional vote, and cast straight-ticket
ballots. We demonstrate that while voters living in the “short
end of the split” are less likely to recall their House
candidates, they do behave similarly at the ballot box to voters
drawn into districts containing their natural community of interest.
Our results suggest the Supreme Court’s traditional focus on
population equality across congressional districts might be more
appropriately administered in concert with respect for natural
communities of interest such as counties.

 

 From Politics & Society

 

Winner-Take-All
Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of
Top Incomes in the United
States

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson

June 2010

ABSTRACT

The dramatic rise in inequality in the United States
over the past generation has occasioned considerable attention from
economists, but strikingly little from students of American
politics. This has started to change: in recent years, a small but
growing body of political science research on rising inequality has
challenged standard economic accounts that emphasize apolitical processes
of economic change. For all the sophistication of this new
scholarship, however, it too fails to provide a compelling account
of the political sources and effects of rising inequality. In
particular, these studies share with dominant economic accounts three
weaknesses: (1) they downplay the distinctive feature of American
inequality –namely, the extreme concentration of income gains at the
top of the economic ladder; (2) they miss the profound role of
government policy in creating this “winner-take-all”
pattern; and (3) they give little attention or weight to the
dramatic long-term transformation of the organizational landscape of
American politics that lies behind these changes in policy. These
weaknesses are interrelated, stemming ultimately from a conception
of politics that emphasizes the sway (or lack thereof) of the
“median voter” in electoral politics, rather than the
influence of organized interests in the process of policy making. A
perspective centered on organizational and policy change –one that
identifies the major policy shifts that have bolstered the economic
standing of those at the top and then links those shifts to concrete
organizational efforts by resourceful private interests –fares much
better at explaining why the American political economy has become
distinctively winner-take-all.


POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – MAY 2010

From Political Behavior

 

The Role of Media Distrust in
Partisan Voting

Jonathan McDonald Ladd

May 2010

 

ABSTRACT  

As an institution, the American news media have become highly unpopular in
recent decades. Yet, we do not thoroughly understand the consequences of this
unpopularity for mass political behavior. While several existing studies find
that media trust moderates media effects, they do not examine the consequences
of this for voting. This paper explores those consequences by analyzing voting
behavior in the 2004 presidential election. It finds, consistent with most
theories of persuasion and with studies of media effects in other contexts,
that media distrust leads voters to discount campaign news and increasingly
rely on their partisan predispositions as cues. This suggests that increasing
aggregate levels of media distrust are an important source of greater partisan
voting.

The Enduring Effects of Social
Pressure: Tracking Campaign Experiments Over a Series of Elections

Tiffany C. Davenport, Alan S. Gerber,
Donald P. Green, Christopher W. Larimer,
Christopher B. Mann and Costas Panagopoulos

May 2010

ABSTRACT  

Recent field experiments have demonstrated the powerful effect of social
pressure messages on voter turnout. This research note considers the question
of whether these interventions’ effects persist over a series of subsequent
elections. Tracking more than one million voters from six experimental studies,
we find strong and statistically significant enduring effects one and sometimes
two years after the initial communication

Considering Mixed Mode Surveys for
Questions in Political Behavior: Using the Internet and Mail to Get Quality
Data at Reasonable Costs

Lonna Rae Atkeson, Alex N. Adams,
Lisa A. Bryant, Luciana Zilberman and Kyle L. Saunders

May 2010

ABSTRACT  

Telephone surveys have been a principle means of learning about the
attitudes and behaviors of citizens and voters. The single mode telephone
survey, however, is increasingly threatened by rising costs, the declining use
of landline telephones, and declining participation rates. One solution to
these problems has been the introduction of mixed-mode surveys. However, such
designs are relatively new and questions about their representativeness and the
intricacies of the methodology remain. We report on the representativeness of a
post election mixed-mode (Internet and mail) survey design of 2006 general
election voters. We compare sample respondent means to sample frame means on
key demographic characteristics and examine how mail and Internet respondents
differed in terms of attitudes, behaviors and demographics. We find that
overall the Internet respondents were representative of the population and that
respondent choice of mode did not influence item response. We conclude that
mixed-mode designs may allow researchers to ask important questions about
political behavior from their desktops.

Timing Is Everything? Primacy and
Recency Effects in Voter Mobilization Campaigns

Costas Panagopoulos

May 2010

ABSTRACT  

The timing of message delivery in political campaigns is a key component of
strategy. Yet studies that examine the impact of message timing on political
behavior are surprisingly rare. Although one recent study finds that appeals
delivered closer to Election Day will be most effective (Nickerson, American
Journal of Political Science 51(2):269-282, 2007), methodological
considerations render this conclusion tentative and suggest the impact of
message timing remains an open question. In this paper I report the results of
a randomized field experiment designed to compare the mobilization effects of
nonpartisan messages delivered via commercial phone banks at different points
during a campaign cycle. The results of the experiment, conducted during the
November 2005 municipal elections in Rochester, New York, suggest calls
delivered early on during a campaign cycle can also be effective.

Explicit Evidence on the Import of
Implicit Attitudes: The IAT and Immigration Policy Judgments

Efrén O. Pérez

May 2010

ABSTRACT

The implicit association test (IAT) is increasingly used to detect automatic
attitudes. Yet a fundamental question remains about this measure: How well can
it predict individual judgments? Though studies find that IAT scores shape
individual evaluations, these inquiries do not account for an array of
well-validated, theoretically relevant variables, thus raising the challenge of
omitted variable bias. For scholars using the IAT, the risk here is one of
misattributing to implicit attitudes what can be better explained by alternate
and rigorous self-reports of explicit constructs. This paper examines the IAT’s
performance in the context of U.S. immigration politics. Using a representative
web survey of adults, I demonstrate the IAT effectively captures implicit
attitude toward Latino immigrants. Critically, I then show these attitudes
substantively mold individual preferences for illegal and legal immigration
policy, net of political ideology, socio-economic concerns, and
well-established measures of intolerance toward immigrants, such as
authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. Combined, these results suggest the IAT
measures attitudes that are non-redundant and potent predictors of individual
political judgments.

 

From Political Psychology

 

Basic Personal Values, Core Political Values, and Voting: A
Longitudinal Analysis

Shalom H. Schwartz, Gian Vittorio Caprara and
Michele Vecchione

May 2010

ABSTRACT

We theorize that political values express basic personal values
in the domain of politics. We test a set of hypotheses that specify how the
motivational structure of basic values constrains and gives coherence to core
political values. We also test the hypothesis that core political values
mediate relations of basic personal values to voting demonstrated in previous
research. We measured the basic personal values, core political values, and
vote of Italian adults both before (n = 1699)
and after (n = 1030) the 2006 national election.
Basic values explained substantial variance in each of eight political values
(22% to 53%) and predicted voting significantly. Correlations and an MDS
projection of relations among basic values and political values supported the
hypothesized coherent structuring of core political values by basic values.
Core political values fully mediated relations of basic values to voting,
supporting a basic values–political values–voting causal hierarchy.


Legitimizing the
“War on Terror”: Political Myth in Official-Level Rhetoric

Joanne Esch

May 2010

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that mythical discourse affects
political practice by imbuing language with power, shaping what people consider
to be legitimate, and driving the determination to act. Drawing on Bottici’s
(2007
) philosophical understanding of political myth as a process of work
on a common narrative that answers the human need to ground events in significance,
it contributes to the study of legitimization in political discourse by
examining the role of political myth in official-level U.S. war
rhetoric. It explores how two ubiquitous yet largely invisible political myths,
American Exceptionalism and Civilization vs.
Barbarism
, which have long defined America’s ideal image of itself and
its place in the world, have become staples in the language of the “War on
Terror.” Through a qualitative analysis of the content of over 50 official
texts containing lexical triggers of the two myths, this paper shows that
senior officials of the Bush Administration have rhetorically accessed these
mythical representations of the world in ways that legitimize and normalize the
practices of the “War on Terror.”


Authoritarianism,
Social Dominance, and Other Roots of Generalized Prejudice

Sam McFarland

May 2010

ABSTRACT

The search for the personological roots of generalized prejudice
(or ethnocentrism) began with the authoritarian personality, but in recent
years, the twin constructs of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance
orientation have been widely treated as the dual processes that lead to
generalized prejudice. However, studies conducted for this article show that
other constructs, notably empathy and principled moral reasoning, contribute
important additional variance. Whereas authoritarianism and social dominance
positively predict generalized prejudice, empathy and principled moral
reasoning are related negatively to it. For the final study, a structural model
of these relationships was tested. To fully understand individual differences
in the propensity for generalized prejudice, it is necessary to move beyond the
dual processes union of authoritarianism and social dominance.

 

From American Political Science
Review

 

Electoral Markets,
Party Strategies, and Proportional Representation

Carles Boix

May 2010

ABSTRACT

Following Kreuzer’s (2010) methodological pleas, I first
reflect, at the conceptual level, on the ways in which historical research and
political science should be related to each other. I then apply some of those
considerations to examine two key “moments” in the theory (and history) of
institutional choice that I first presented in Boix (1999): the underlying
conditions that shaped the interests of different parties toward proportional
representation, and the process through which those interests were translated
into actual legislative decisions.

Activists
and Conflict Extension in American Party Politics

Geoffrey C. Layman, Thomas M. Carsey, John C. Green, Richard Herrera and
Rosalyn Cooperman

May 2010

ABSTRACT

Party activists have played a leading role in
“conflict extension”–the polarization of the parties along multiple issue
dimensions–in contemporary American politics. We argue that open nomination
systems and the ambitious politicians competing within those systems encourage
activists with extreme views on a variety of issue dimensions to become
involved in party politics, thus motivating candidates to take noncentrist
positions on a range of issues. Once that happens, continuing activists with
strong partisan commitments bring their views into line with the new candidate
agendas, thus extending the domain of interparty conflict. Using
cross-sectional and panel surveys of national convention delegates, we find
clear evidence for conflict extension among party activists, evidence
tentatively suggesting a leading role for activists in partisan conflict
extension more generally, and strong support for our argument about change
among continuing activists. Issue conversion among activists has contributed
substantially to conflict extension and party commitment has played a key role
in motivating that conversion.

Estimating the
Electoral Effects of Voter Turnout

Thomas G. Hansford and Brad T. Gomez

May 2010

ABSTRACT

This article examines the electoral consequences of
variation in voter turnout in the United States. Existing scholarship focuses
on the claim that high turnout benefits Democrats, but evidence supporting this
conjecture is variable and controversial. Previous work, however, does not
account for endogeneity between turnout and electoral choice, and thus, causal
claims are questionable. Using election day rainfall as an instrumental
variable for voter turnout, we are able to estimate the effect of variation in turnout
due to across-the-board changes in the utility of voting. We re-examine the
Partisan Effects and Two-Effects Hypotheses, provide an empirical test of an
Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis, and propose a Volatility Hypothesis, which posits
that high turnout produces less predictable electoral outcomes. Using
county-level data from the 1948-2000 presidential elections, we find support
for each hypothesis. Failing to address the endogeneity problem would lead
researchers to incorrectly reject all but the Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis. The
effect of variation in turnout on electoral outcomes appears quite meaningful.
Although election-specific factors other than turnout have the greatest
influence on who wins an election, variation in turnout significantly affects
vote shares at the county, national, and Electoral College levels.

 

From Electoral Studies

 

The 2009 Mexican
Midterm Congressional Elections

Joseph L. Klesner

May 2010.

ABSTRACT

In Mexico’s 5 July 2009 midterm congressional elections
the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) made significant gains in the lower
house of the Mexican federal congress and in state and local elections held the
same day. In addition, a high percentage of voters cast deliberately nullified
votes to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with existing choices among the
parties. The elections were a setback for President Felipe Calderon of the
National Action Party.

Resource spending
over time in competitions for electoral support

Alex Coram

May 2010

ABSTRACT

So far we have little by way of a theoretical
understanding of the dynamics of electoral competition. This paper attempts to
fill some of this gap by studying resource expenditure over the electoral
cycle. Among the main results is that, when contributions are independent of support
parties accelerate expenditure during the entire period between elections, even
when voters do not forget. If contributions depend on support, and are
significant, parties front load expenditure and decelerate.


POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – APRIL 2010

From The British
Journal of Political Science

 

Divided
We Fall: Opposition Fragmentation and the Electoral Fortunes of Governing
Parties

Ko
Maeda

April
2010

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the concept of opposition
fragmentation into the study of the determinants of election results. Empirical
studies have demonstrated that anti-government economic voting is likely to
take place where the clarity of responsibility (the degree to which voters can
attribute policy responsibility to the government) is high. This argument is
extended by focusing on the effects of the degree of opposition fragmentation
in influencing the extent to which poor economic performance decreases the
government’s vote share. With data from seventeen parliamentary democracies, it
is shown that when there are fewer opposition parties, the relationship between
economic performance and governing parties’ electoral fortune is stronger.
Opposition fragmentation appears to be as strong a factor as the clarity of
responsibility.

 

From Political Psychology

 

Political
Conservatism, Need for Cognitive Closure, and Intergroup Hostility

 

Agnieszka Golec De Zavala, Aleksandra Cislak and
Elzbieta Wesolowska

April 2010

ABSTRACT

Two studies examined the interaction of political conservatism
and the need for cognitive closure in predicting aggressiveness in intergroup
conflict and hostility toward outgroups. In the first study, Polish
participants indicated their preference for coercive conflict strategies in the
context of a real-life intergroup conflict. Only among participants who
identify themselves as conservative, need for cognitive closure was positively
and significantly related to preference for aggressive actions against the
outgroup. In the second study, the predicted interaction was investigated in
the context of the terrorist threat in Poland. The findings indicated that high
in need for closure conservatives showed greater hostility against Arabs and
Muslims only when they believed that Poland was under threat of terrorist
attacks inspired by Islamist fundamentalism.

Ethnic
Minority-Majority Asymmetry in National Attitudes around the World: A
Multilevel Analysis

 

Christian Staerklé, Jim Sidanius, Eva
G. T.
Green and Ludwin E. Molina

 

April 2010

 

ABSTRACT

Using data from the International Social Survey Programme,
this research investigated asymmetric attitudes of ethnic minorities and
majorities towards their country and explored the impact of human development,
ethnic diversity, and social inequality as country-level moderators of national
attitudes. In line with the general hypothesis of ethnic asymmetry, we found
that ethnic, linguistic, and religious majorities were more identified with the
nation and more strongly endorsed nationalist ideology than minorities (H1, 33
countries). Multilevel analyses revealed that this pattern of asymmetry was
moderated by country-level characteristics: the difference between minorities
and majorities was greatest in ethnically diverse countries and in egalitarian,
low inequality contexts. We also observed a larger positive correlation between
ethnic subgroup identification and both national identification and nationalism
for majorities than for minorities (H2, 20 countries). A stronger overall
relationship between ethnic and national identification was observed in
countries with a low level of human development. The greatest minority-majority
differences in the relationship between ethnic identification and national
attitudes were found in egalitarian countries with a strong welfare state
tradition.

 

From Public Opinion Quarterly

 

Residential
Mobility, Family Structure, and The Cell-Only Population

Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian F. Schaffner


April 2010  

The cell-phone-only (CPO) population has grown rapidly over the
past several years, causing concern for researchers who rely mostly
on random digit dialing (RDD) of landlines to conduct their
research. While early research on CPOs has focused largely on age
differences, CPOs may differ from those with landlines in many other
ways even after controlling for age. In this article, we use the
Cooperative Congressional Election Study–an Internet survey based on
matched random sampling–and the American National Election Study–an
in-person survey based on stratified residential sampling–to examine
the potential effects of the cell-only population for survey
research. These surveys are ideal for studying the causes and
consequences of cell-only lifestyles for survey research because
they reach cell-only and landline respondents through a single
sampling frame. We reach two main conclusions: (1) CPO households
are not simply a function of age, but of other factors as well,
especially residential mobility and family structure; and (2) there
are notable differentials in vote preferences and turnout between
CPOs and others.

Race And Turnout
In U.S. Elections Exposing Hidden Effects

Benjamin J. Deufel and Orit Kedar

 

April 2010

We demonstrate that the use of self-reported turnout data
often results in misleading inferences about racial differences in
turnout. We theorize about the mechanism driving report of turnout and,
utilizing ANES turnout data in presidential elections from 1976 to
1988 (all years for which comparable validated data are available),
we empirically model report of turnout as well as the relationship
between reported and actual turnout. We apply the model to the two
subsequent presidential elections in which validated data are not
available, 1992 and 1996. Our findings suggest that African
Americans turned out almost 20 percentage points less than did
Whites in the 1992 and 1996 U.S. presidential elections–almost
double the gap that the self-reported data indicates. In contrast
with previous research, we show that racial differences in factors
predicting turnout make African Americans less likely to vote
compared to Whites and thus increase their probability of
overreporting. At the same time, when controlling for this effect,
other things equal, African Americans overreport electoral
participation more than Whites.

 

From The
Forum

 

The Scenic Road
to Nowhere: Reflections on the History of National Health Insurance in the
United States

Edward D. Berkowitz

April, 2010

Abstract

This historical essay looks at the changing meaning of
health insurance over time and explains how broad economic and political forces
have created that meaning at any one time but that these forces interact with
the contingencies of the moment to produce a particular outcome. That outcome
in turn influences the subsequent development of health insurance.

Harry Reid and Health Care Reform in the
Senate: Transactional Leadership in a Transformational Moment?

Vincent G. Moscardelli

April 2010

Abstract

On December 24, 2009, the United States Senate passed H.R.
3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by a vote of 60-39. Final
passage was the culmination of over a month of behind-the-scenes negotiations
and strategy sessions coordinated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
In this paper, I trace and evaluate Harry Reid’s coalition-building efforts
on health care reform in the months leading up to the Christmas Eve vote using
concepts drawn from the political science literature on legislative leadership.
I conclude that Reid adopted precisely the transactional,
“keep-the-chains-moving” leadership posture that matched both the
institution he leads and his limited personal investment in the issue of health
care prior to 2009. Efforts to paint Reid’s performance on this issue as a
failure of leadership ignore the extent to which contextual factors in the
Senate were stacked against reform.

Simulating Representation: Elite
Mobilization and Political Power in Health Care Reform

Robert Y. Shapiro and Lawrence Jacobs

April 2010

Abstract

The debate and the outcome in the Obama Administration’s drive to enact
national health care reform illustrate the conditional nature of democratic
governance in the United States, a blend of partisan policy maximization and
elite mobilization strategies that exploit core public policy preferences. The
public’s core policy preferences have, for some time, favored expanding access
to health insurance, regulating private insurers to ensure reliable coverage,
and increasing certain taxes to pay for these programs. Yet the intensely
divisive debate over reform generated several notable gaps between proposed
policies and public opinion for two reasons.

First, Democratic policymakers and their supporters pushed for certain
specific means for pursuing these broad policy goals—namely, mandates on
individuals to obtain health insurance coverage and the imposition of an excise
tax on high-end health insurance plans—that the public opposed. Second, core
public support for reform flipped into majority opposition in reaction to
carefully crafted messages aimed at frightening Americans and especially by
partisan polarization that cued Republican voters into opposition while they
unnerved independents. The result suggests a critical change in American
democracy, originating in transformations at the elite level and involving,
specifically, increased incentives to attempt to move the public in the
direction of policy goals favored by elites policies and to rally their
partisan base, rather than to respond to public wishes.

Why the “Death Panel” Myth
Wouldn’t Die: Misinformation in the Health Care Reform Debate

Brendan Nyhan

April 2010

Abstract

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama struggled to overcome
widespread and persistent myths about their proposals to reform the American
health care system. Their difficulties highlight the influence of factual
misinformation in national politics and the extent to which it correlates with
citizens’ political views. In this essay, I explain how greater elite
polarization and the growth in media choice have reinforced the partisan divide
in factual beliefs. To illustrate these points, I analyze debates over health
care reform in 1993—1994 and 2009—2010, tracing the spread of false claims
about reform proposals from Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and analyzing the
prevalence of misinformation in public opinion. Since false beliefs are
extremely difficult to correct, I conclude by arguing that increasing the
reputational costs for dishonest elites might be a more effective approach to
improving democratic discourse.

Loss Aversion and the Framing of the Health
Care Reform Debate

David L. Eckles and Brian F. Schaffner

April 2010

Abstract

The high-stakes debate over health care reform captured the
public’s attention for nearly a year. Options ranging from fully nationalized
insurance to maintaining the status quo were considered, though little
consensus as to the appropriate solution emerged. Most surveys indicated an
agreement that a problem existed with the current health care system and a
clear and consistent majority favored taking some action on health care reform.
However, clear public support for any specific reform proposal was difficult to
muster since most individuals also indicated satisfaction with their own health
care. This paper explores this disconnect in public opinion within the context
of loss aversion. We note that even as elites actively attempted to frame the
issue to counteract the public’s loss averse tendencies, these strategies met
with little success in generating support for Obama’s reform plan. However, we
also argue that these loss averse tendencies will now work against any
Republican efforts to repeal the health reform legislation.

Public Opinion on Health Care Reform

Andrew Gelman, Daniel Lee and Yair Ghitza

April, 2010

Abstract

We use multilevel modeling to estimate support for health-care reform by
age, income, and state. Opposition to reform is concentrated among
higher-income voters and those over 65. Attitudes do not vary much by state.
Unfortunately, our poll data only go to 2004, but we suspect that much can be
learned from the relative positions of different demographic groups
and different states, despite swings in national opinion. We speculate on the
political implications of these findings.

Review of Presidential Party Building:
Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush

Jesse H. Rhodes

April, 2010

Abstract

This article reviews Daniel Galvin’s Presidential Party Building
(Princeton University Press, 2010).

 

From Perspectives on Politics

 

After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy, by Christopher J. Coyne

Graciana del Castillo

April 2010

ABSTRACT

This is a highly readable book that provides
strong and rigorous arguments to prove a thesis that is intuitive to many but
still denied by some–that the United States foreign policy of using military
intervention, occupation, and reconstruction to establish liberal democracies
across the world is more likely to fail than to succeed.

 

From the American
Journal of Political Science

 

Partisan Polarization
and Congressional Accountability in House Elections

David R. Jones

April 2010

ABSTRACT

Early research led scholars to believe that
institutional accountability in Congress is lacking because public evaluations
of its collective performance do not affect the reelection of its members.
However, a changed partisan environment along with new empirical evidence
raises unanswered questions about the effect of congressional performance on
incumbents’ electoral outcomes over time. Analysis of House reelection races
across the last several decades produces important findings: (1) low
congressional approval ratings generally reduce the electoral margins of
majority party incumbents and increase margins for minority party incumbents;
(2) partisan polarization in the House increases the magnitude of this partisan
differential, mainly through increased electoral accountability among majority
party incumbents; (3) these electoral effects of congressional performance
ratings hold largely irrespective of a member’s individual party loyalty or
seat safety. These findings carry significant implications for partisan
theories of legislative organization and help explain salient features of
recent Congresses.

Party Strength, the
Personal Vote, and Government Spending

 

David M. Primo James
M.
Snyder, Jr.

 

April 2010

 

ABSTRACT

“Strong” political parties within
legislatures are one possible solution to the problem of inefficient
universalism, a norm under which all legislators seek large projects for their
districts that are paid for out of a common pool. We demonstrate that even if
parties have no role in the legislature, their role in elections can be
sufficient to reduce spending. If parties in the electorate are strong, then
legislators will demand less distributive spending because of a decreased
incentive to secure a “personal vote” via local projects. We estimate
that spending in states with strong party organizations is at least 4% smaller
than in states where parties are weak. We also find evidence that strong party
states receive less federal aid than states with weak organizations, and we
theorize that this is because members of Congress from strong party states feel
less compelled to secure aid than members from weak party states.

Candidate Valence and
Ideological Positions in U.S. House Elections

 

Walter J. Stone 
and
Elizabeth N. Simas

 

April 2010

ABSTRACT

We examine the relationship between the valence
qualities of candidates and the ideological positions they take in U.S. House
elections based on a study of the 2006 midterm elections. Our design enables us
to distinguish between campaign and character dimensions of candidate valence
and to place candidates and districts on the same ideological scale. Incumbents
with a personal-character advantage are closer ideologically to their district
preferences, while disadvantaged challengers take more extreme policy
positions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, challengers can reap electoral
rewards by taking more extreme positions relative to their districts. We
explore a possible mechanism for this extremism effect by demonstrating that
challengers closer to the extreme received greater financial contributions,
which enhanced their chances of victory. Our results bear on theories of
representation that include policy and valence, although the interactions
between these two dimensions may be complex and counterintuitive.

The World Wide Web
and the U.S. Political News Market

 

Norman H. Nie, 
Darwin W. Miller III, Saar Golde, Daniel
M.
Butler and  Kenneth Winneg

 

April 2010

 

ABSTRACT

We propose a framework for understanding how the
Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven
by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers’ tendency to seek
out media that conform to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that
consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and
be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume
mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets
with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we
find that consumers of generally left-of-center (right-of-center) cable news
sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more
liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use
online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news
content to be interested in niche political issues.

 

From The Journal of Politics

 

The Blind
Leading the Blind: Who Gets Polling Information and Does it Improve Decisions?

Cheryl Boudreau and Matthew D. McCubbins

April 2010

Abstract

We analyze whether and when polls help
citizens to improve their decisions. Specifically, we use experiments to
investigate (1) whether and when citizens are willing to obtain polls and (2)
whether and when polls help citizens to make better choices than they would
have made on their own. We find that citizens are more likely to obtain polls
when the decisions they must make are difficult and when they are
unsophisticated. Ironically, when the decisions are difficult, the pollees are
also uninformed and, therefore, do not provide useful information. We also find
that when polls indicate the welfare-improving choice, citizens are able to
improve their decisions. However, when polls indicate a choice that will make
citizens worse off, citizens make worse decisions than they would have made on
their own. These results hold regardless of whether the majority in favor of
one option over the other is small or large.

Policy by
Contract: electoral cycles, parties and social pacts, 1974-2000

John S. Ahlquist

April 2010

ABSTRACT

Formal policy agreements between governments
and major peak associations–social pacts–are a useful way to explore issues of
election-induced variation in economic policymaking. I argue that pacts are
part of an electoral strategy for political parties. They are one way a party
can convince voters that economic outcomes under its rule will be better than
those under a challenger. I show that pacts can emerge as part of equilibrium
behavior in a repeated game but only if the policymaker is sufficiently willing
to work with unions. There is no reason for a pact to exist in the absence of
electoral incentives. I hypothesize that pacts are more likely to be struck
nearer to elections and with greater Left participation in government. Using an
original dataset on social pacts in the OECD, 1974-2000, I find evidence that the
onset of pacts is related to elections, partisanship, and EMU convergence
pressures.

 

From Electoral Studies

 

Transformation and
Polarization: The 2008 Presidential Election and the New American Electorate

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view
references and further reading you must purchase this article.

Alan I. Abramowitz

April 2010

Abstract

Along with the unpopularity of President Bush and the dire condition of the
U.S. economy, changes in the composition of the American electorate played a
major role in Barack Obama’s decisive victory in the 2008 presidential
election. The doubling of the nonwhite share of the electorate between 1992 and
2008 was critical to Obama’s election as African-American and other nonwhite
voters provided him with a large enough margin to overcome a substantial
deficit among white voters. In addition, voters under the age of 30 preferred
Obama by a better than 2-1 margin, accounting for more than 80 percent of his popular
vote margin. Despite the overall Democratic trend, the results revealed an
increasingly polarized electorate. Over the past three decades the coalitions
supporting the two major parties have become much more distinctive
geographically, racially, and ideologically. The growth of the nonwhite
electorate along with the increasing liberalism and Democratic identification
of younger voters suggest that a successful Obama presidency could put the
Democratic Party in a position to dominate American politics for many years.
However, these trends appear to be provoking an intense reaction from some
opponents of the President. The frustration and anger displayed at “tea party”
demonstrations and town hall meetings may reflect not just discomfort with
Barack Obama’s race but the perceived threat that Obama and his supporters
represent to the social status and power of those on the opposing side.

The Dynamic
Political Economy of Support for Barack Obama During the 2008 Presidential
Election Campaign

Thomas J. Scotto, Harold D. Clarke, Allan Kornberg, Jason Reifler, David
Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart, Paul Whiteley

April 2010

Abstract

In recent years, students of voting behavior have become increasingly
interested in valence politics models of electoral choice. These models share
the core assumption that key issues in electoral politics typically are ones
upon which there is a widespread public consensus on the goals of public
policy. The present paper uses latent curve modeling procedures and data from a
six-wave national panel survey of the American electorate to investigate the
dynamic effects of voters’ concerns with the worsening economy–a valence issue par excellence–in the skein of causal
forces at work in the 2008 presidential election campaign. As the campaign
developed, the economy became the dominant issue. Although the massively
negative public reaction to increasingly perilous economic conditions was not
the only factor at work in 2008, dynamic multivariate analyses show that
mounting worries about the economy played an important role in fueling Barack
Obama’s successful run for the presidency.

 

From Social Science Research

 

Political
Partisanship, Race, and Union Strength from 1970 to 2000: A Pooled Time-Series
Analysis

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view
references and further reading you must purchase this article.

David Jacobsa and Marc Dixon

April 2010

Abstract

This paper reports findings that assess the relationship between the
resurgence in conservative political strength and union density in the United
States. The conservative Republican return to political power after 1968 is
likely to have produced added declines in union membership. Yet despite close
political regulation of labor-management disputes, sociologists have paid
little attention to the influential political determinants of success in these
contests. Using fixed-effects estimation, this analysis assesses the
relationship between the political strength of the political party most hostile
to labor and union density. With multiple factors held constant, the results
suggest that increased Republican presence in the state legislatures along with
Republican control of the presidency and the governor’s office after 1989
helped to reduce union memberships. The results also indicate that increases in
the percentage of African Americans produces greater union strength but not in
the ex-Confederate states. Added findings suggest two policies controlled by
the states have influential effects on this outcome.

 

From PS: Political Science & Politics

 

What Might Bring
Regular Order Back to the House?

 

Matthew Green and Daniel Burns

 

April 2010

 

ABSTRACT

It is not hard to find critics of how the U.S. Congress
operates today. Two of the most prominent, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein,
have bemoaned in particular Congress’s failure to follow “regular order,” which
in their 2006 book The
Broken Branch
they describe as a legislative process that
incorporates “discussion, debate, negotiation, and compromise” (Mann and
Ornstein 2006, 170).

Demographic Change and
the Future of Congress

Kathryn Pearson

 

April 2010

 

ABSTRACT

The United States population is changing in significant ways:
it is growing larger, older, and more racially and ethnically diverse, and
these changes are regionally concentrated. How will these changes affect the
future of Congress? In this article, I show that demographic change has
significant implications for the quality of representation, the legislative
agenda, party coalitions, and the diversity of congressional membership in the
future, even as change inside Congress will proceed more slowly than change
outside it.

Did Bush Voters
Cause Obama’s Victory?

Arthur Lupia

 

April 2010

ABSTRACT

In the 2008 election, Barack Obama’s campaign brought many new
voters to the polls. Were these new voters necessary for Obama’s victory? In
this study, I find that they were not. The basis of this finding is an
examination of decisions made by people who voted for George W. Bush in 2004. I
show that Bush voters’ decisions not to vote or to support Obama were a
sufficient condition for Obama’s victory.

When Ballot Issues
Matter: Social Issue Ballot Measures and Their Impact on Turnout

Daniel R. Biggers

April 2010

ABSTRACT

Evidence for whether direct democracy positively affects turnout is mixed,
which can be attributed to a theoretical ambiguity about the proper way to
measure the institution. The most common measure, a count of the number of
initiatives on the ballot, is incomplete, because it unrealistically assumes
that all propositions have an equal impact on turnout and focuses exclusively
on initiatives. These deficiencies are addressed by looking at the issue
content of all ballot measures. I find that the number of social issues on the
ballot, because they are highly salient, tap into existing social cleavages,
help to overcome barriers to voting, and fit within a framework of expressive
choice, had a positive impact on turnout for all midterm and some presidential
elections since 1992. In contrast to previous findings, however, the total
number of propositions on the ballot was rarely associated with an increase in
turnout. I discuss the implications of these findings in the conclusion.

 

From Political Research Quarterly

 

The Paradox of
Redistricting: How Partisan Mapmakers Foster Competition but Disrupt
Representation

Antoine Yoshinaka,
Ph.D. and Chad Murphy

 

April 2010

 

ABSTRACT

 

The authors examine constituency changes induced by
redistricting and ask three questions: What explains the amount of
instability and uncertainty induced by redistricting? Does
uncertainty affect legislators’ career choices? How do these changes
affect election outcomes? The authors show that partisan
redistricting plans are able to produce significant instability
between elections, especially for opposing-party incumbents. Their
findings have important implications for representation: through
redistricting, strategic actors can disrupt the stability that many
theorists would consider paramount for the operation of a democratic
republic. The authors show that the effects of redistricting go
beyond the simple examination of changes in each district’s
underlying partisanship.

 

From Quarterly Journal of Political Science

 

Political Information
Acquisition for Social Exchange

Gani Aldashev

April 2010

ABSTRACT

Why do citizens get politically informed in a democracy? On one hand, being
informed allows a citizen to participate in political discussions within her
social network. On the other hand, having an informed opinion can help her to
extend her social network. This paper builds a simple model on these insights
and finds that effort in political information acquisition has inverted-U shape
in the size of social network. The data from the 2000 American National
Election Study and the 2002-2006 European Social Surveys confirm this theory:
political information acquisition, political knowledge, and interest in
politics increase with the size of social network, at a decreasing rate. The
effect of social network is much weaker for the political efficacy measures for
the United States, but not for Europe.

 

From Political
Behavior

 

How Sophistication
Affected The 2000 Presidential Vote: Traditional Sophistication Measures Versus
Conceptualization

Herbert F. Weisberg and
Steven P. Nawara

April 2010

ABSTRACT  

The 2000 Presidential vote is modeled using voter
sophistication as a source of heterogeneity. Three measures of sophistication
are employed: education, knowledge, and the levels of conceptualization.
Interacting them with vote predictors shows little meaningful variation.
However, removing the assumption of ordinality from the levels of
conceptualization uncovers considerable heterogeneity in the importance of the
vote predictors in explaining the vote. Thus, different sophistication measures
should not be treated as equivalent, nor combined as if they are equivalent.
Few of the issue and candidate components are relevant to those with a less
sophisticated understanding of politics. The opposite partisan attachments of
the two most sophisticated groups suggest that sophistication’s impact on the
vote can be confounded by partisanship.


POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – MARCH 2010

From Public Opinion Quarterly

 

Social
desirability bias in voter turnout reports

Allyson L.
Holbrook and Jon A. Krosnick

March 2010

Surveys usually yield rates of voting in elections that are higher
than official turnout figures, a phenomenon often attributed to
intentional misrepresentation by respondents who did not vote and
would be embarrassed to admit that. The experiments reported here tested
the social desirability response bias hypothesis directly by
implementing a technique that allowed respondents to report secretly
whether they voted: the “item count technique.” The item
count technique significantly reduced turnout reports in a national
telephone survey relative to direct self-reports, suggesting that
social desirability response bias influenced direct self-reports in
that survey. But in eight national surveys of American adults
conducted via the Internet, the item count technique did not
significantly reduce turnout reports. This mode difference is
consistent with other evidence that the Internet survey mode may be
less susceptible to social desirability response bias because of
self-administration.

Direct
Democracy, Public Opinion, and Candidate Choice

Daniel A. Smith and Caroline J.
Tolbert

 

March 2010

 

Abstract  

We argue that the rich information environment created by ballot measures
makes some policy issues more salient, shaping voters’ positions on
broad topics such as the importance of the economy. This in turn may
affect candidate choice for national and statewide elected office.
We theorize that the creation of state-specific issue publics may be
the causal mechanism underlying this process. Using large-sample
national survey data with robust samples from the 50 U.S. states, we
test whether mass support for a specific policy–raising the minimum
wage–is higher in states where the issue is on the ballot, whether
being directly exposed to initiative campaigns elevates the importance
of broad issues like the economy, and whether the economic-related
ballot measures prime support for Democratic candidates. We find
that exposure to minimum-wage ballot measure campaigns in 2006
modified support for the policy among partisan subsamples (with
Democrats becoming more likely and Republicans less likely to
support the measure), increased the saliency of the economy in
general among these targeted populations, and primed support for
Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

U.S. Public
Support for the United Nations

 

Gregory G. Holyk

 

March 2010

 

Abstract

In the aftermath of the failure to come to a diplomatic resolution regarding
Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent military strike by the United States
and its allies without United Nations (UN) approval, the usefulness
and role of international diplomatic institutions such as the UN are
undergoing a reexamination. The U.S. public has shown a high degree
of general support for the UN since its inception. Although
judgments of UN performance rose and fell over the years, support
for strengthening the UN and for continued U.S. participation and
cooperation with the UN remained strong and stable. Most notably,
approval of UN performance dropped to an all-time low between 2003
and 2007, after the contentious debate over the use of force against
Iraq. Nonetheless, support for the UN has remained strong because
the U.S. public differentiates between criticism of UN performance and
support for the general purpose and aims of the UN.

 

From Political Science Quarterly

 

Perception,
Memory, and Partisan Polarization on the Iraq War

Gary C. Jacobson

March 2010

ABSTRACT 

GARY C. JACOBSON analyzes four surveys designed to
investigate partisan polarization on the Iraq war. He finds that modes of
motivated reasoning, including motivated skepticism and selective perception,
selective memory, and selective exposure, contributed strongly to the emergence
of the unusually wide differences of opinion on the war.

 

The Third Agenda in U.S.
Presidential Debates: Debate Watch and

Viewer Reactions, 19962004 by Diana B. Carlin, Kelly M.
McDonald,

Tammy Vigil, and Susan Buehler.
Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers,

2008. 283 pp. $64.95.

 

Review by William L. Benoit

 

March 2010

 

The bookʼs title pays homage to the important
concept advanced by Jackson-Beeck and Meadow that there are three agendas
involved in debates: those of candidates, those of the media, and those of the
public. This book is devoted to an appreciation of voters
ʼ perspectives on debates. It offers
new data and a perspective (qualitative) on presidential debates that differs
from most work in this area. Although some data in the book are from survey
research, the heart of this enterprise consists of analysis of quotations from
focus groups. Different kinds of data offer different advantages; the strengths
of this form of data are seeing things from the participants
ʼ (that is, votersʼ) perspective and greater depth of understanding
(the corresponding limitation, of course, is that qualitative data are not
optimal for supporting generalizations about populations). It is important that
we have a variety of forms of data for informing our understanding of
presidential debates. The book reports data from an impressive number of focus
groups

concerning
the presidential debates held in 1996, 2000, and 2004 (for example, 8,376
participants in 824 groups in 1996). Transcripts of the focus groups
ʼ discussions were examined by the
researchers and deployed to address a variety of topics: debate format,
character, issues, vice presidents, third-party candidates, as well as the
views of younger citizens and non-voters. The intent of the quotations used to
explore each of these topics is to
represent a theme or findingthat
reflects
ideas expressed by many others(p. 6), although occasionally the
book diverges from this approach to discuss
unique perspectives(p. 52) or
a
minority
viewpoint
(p. 93). The emphasis on data from focus groups is noticeably
less in the chapter on third-party candidates, because no specific questions in
the DebateWatch protocols addressed this topic,

although
some participants in focus groups volunteered opinions on it. These are
important topics, and the book illuminates all of them with data representing the
opinions of citizens.

Two
limitations deserve mention. First, the utterances offered in focus groups (and
on the limited survey data reported here) are self-report data. Self-report data
can be very illuminating, particularly if one is seeking to understand the perspectives
of voters. However, the fact that participants believe they learned from
debates may not be the best evidence for the claim that viewers in fact do learn
from debates (are
better informed[p. 109]). As it turns out, I
believe

that
political debates do inform (many) viewers; my point is that readers must be
aware of the limitations of self-report data. Second, I believe that the
concept of the Debate Watch program

encouraging
voters to watch debates in groups and then discuss the debates without (or
before) being exposed to comments from pundits
is worthwhile and healthy for
democracy as well as for the citizens who participate in this activity.
However, most voters do not experience debates in this fashion: too many do not
watch debates; too many are exposed to instant commentary from pundits; too few
discuss the debates with other citizens. This means we cannot automatically
assume that reactions of those who participate in Debate Watch activities are
like the reactions of those who are not part of a Debate Watch. Debate Watch is
intentionally
designed
to be a different (and hopefully better) experience. Perhaps the book would
best be considered an exploration of the potential of presidential debates when
voters experience them through the mechanism of Debate Watch and as an extended
(and persuasive) argument

for the
utility of Debate Watches. There is no question that this book offers a unique
and important contribution to the literature. It merits a place in libraries
and on scholars
ʼ bookshelves.

 

Can Welfare States Be
Sustained in a Global Economy? Lessons from Scandinavia

 

Eric S. Einhorn and John Logue

 

March 2010

 

ABSTRACT

ERIC S. EINHORN and JOHN LOGUE argue that the European social model can be
reformed without sacrificing its gains and that the Scandinavian states have
already adapted their welfare state models to meet demographic, social, and
economic challenges. They sketch the characteristics of the Scandinavian model,
including its underpinnings in encompassing organizations of the less well off,
the role of democratic corporatism in policymaking, and the importance of
empiricism, social trust, and solidarity in the development of public policy.

 

From Public Opinion Quarterly

 

Wars, Presidents, and Popularity: The
Political Cost(s) of War Re-Examined

Benny Geys

 

March 2010  

Extensive research demonstrates that war casualties depress incumbent
popularity. The present study argues that one should also account
for financial costs of wars, since a) such costs are substantial; b)
such costs are publicly observed and understood; and c) fiscal
policy affects incumbents’ approval ratings. Empirical evidence
using U.S. data for the period between 1948 and 2008 supports this theoretical
claim: pecuniary costs of warfare either directly affect presidential popularity (e.g., in
the Korean War) or their
inclusion affects the predicted political cost of war casualties
(e.g., in the Korean and Iraq/Afghanistan wars). Interestingly, the
adverse effect of war spending is strongest under favorable economic
conditions (i.e., low unemployment).

American
Public Opinion on Immigrants and Immigration Policy

 

Francine Segovia and Renatta Defever

 

March 2010

Since the issue of immigration and its effects on the United States
persists and discussions on the topic continue to intensify, this
article reviews public opinion trends on immigrants and immigration.
We review Americans’ overall assessment of immigrants and
immigration-related issues such as immigrant impact on the U.S.
economy, perceptions of elected officials’ performance on handling
immigration issues, and preferred approaches to immigration policy.
We draw our framework from Lapinski et al.’s 1997 Public Opinion Quarterly review of
public attitudes and beliefs regarding immigrants and immigration.
This study updates the trends presented in 1997, beginning in many
cases with the final time point presented in that earlier article
and including current national public opinion trends of questions not
previously documented but which have become relevant to the current
immigration debate. The current review reveals mixed attitudes,
dualities in Americans’ thinking, and splits on immigration issues.
In the current review, public opinion is at times ambivalent,
espousing certain attitudes that challenge others. In addition, less
extreme attitudes are revealed in the public’s view of certain
policies as compared with Lapinski et al.’s piece. Spanning what
will now be over a decade, public opinion indicates an increasing
concern over immigration issues in addition to a lack of confidence
in the ability of the country’s leaders to address them. More than
half of today’s immigrants came to the United States in the 1990s,
and their share of the population is at historically peak levels.
Estimates indicate that between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. foreign-born
population grew by more than 11 million. As the rise in the
immigrant population has increased, so have debates over how best to
handle immigration issues. Although policymakers have suggested a
variety of possible solutions, public opinion seems deeply divided
on how best to handle immigration.

Direct Democracy, Public Opinion, and
Candidate Choice

Daniel A. Smith and
Caroline J. Tolbert

 

March 2010

 

ABSTRACT

We argue that the rich information environment created by ballot measures
makes some policy issues more salient, shaping voters’ positions on
broad topics such as the importance of the economy. This in turn may
affect candidate choice for national and statewide elected office.
We theorize that the creation of state-specific issue publics may be
the causal mechanism underlying this process. Using large-sample
national survey data with robust samples from the 50 U.S. states, we
test whether mass support for a specific policy–raising the minimum
wage–is higher in states where the issue is on the ballot, whether
being directly exposed to initiative campaigns elevates the
importance of broad issues like the economy, and whether the
economic-related ballot measures prime support for Democratic
candidates. We find that exposure to minimum-wage ballot measure
campaigns in 2006 modified support for the policy among partisan
subsamples (with Democrats becoming more likely and Republicans less
likely to support the measure), increased the saliency of the
economy in general among these targeted populations, and primed
support for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

 

From Perspectives on Politics

 

It Takes a
State: A Policy Feedback Model of Women’s Political Representation

Eileen McDonagh

March 2010

Abstract

American
women attain more professional success in medicine, business, and higher
education than do most of their counterparts around the world. An enduring
puzzle is, therefore, why the US lags so far behind other countries when it
comes to women’s political representation. In 2008, women held only 16.8
percent of seats in the House of Representatives, a proportion that ranks
America lower than 83 other countries. This article addresses this conundrum.
It establishes that equal rights alone are insufficient to ensure equal access
to political office. Also necessary are public policies representing maternal
traits that voters associate with women. Such policies have feedback effects
that teach voters that the maternal traits attributed to women represent
strengths not only in the private sphere of the home but also in the public
sphere of the state. Most other democracies now have such policies in place,
but the United States lacks such policies, which accounts for its laggard
status with regard to the political representation of women.

What do Women
Really Know? A Gendered Analysis of Varieties of Political Knowledge

Dietlind Stolle and Elisabeth Gidengil

March 2010

Abstract

While
studies typically find that women know less about politics than do men,
feminist scholars have argued that these findings reflect gender-biased
measures that underestimate women’s political knowledge. This article evaluates
the feminist critique by taking a more expansive view of what constitutes
political knowledge. Using data from a large Canadian urban sample, we show
that gender gaps close or even reverse when people are queried about more
practical aspects of political knowledge, such as government benefits and
services. Our results also demonstrate that this type of knowledge is more
equally distributed than its conventional counterpart, though the women who are
the most likely to need government services and benefits are often the least
likely to know about them. Finally, we show that knowledge of government
services and benefits has a significant effect on women’s intended vote choice.
This article thus shows that more practical types of political knowledge might
serve as meaningful additions to existing definitions and measures of political
knowledge.

Staying the
Course: Presidential Leadership, Military Stalemate, and Strategic Inertia

Andrew J. Polsky

March 2010

Abstract

Military
stalemate in Iraq and Vietnam presents a puzzle: why do presidents persist in a
strategic course that has failed to secure the goals they defined when they
chose to embark upon war? In the face of a quagmire, presidents might choose
among three broad strategic options–disengagement, escalation, or continuity. I
argue that the first alternative, to withdraw, is made impossible by the
inflated rhetoric presidents invoke to sell a skeptical public on the necessity
for a limited war and by their own conviction (reinforced by core supporters)
that the price of defeat is too great. At the opposite pole lies the
possibility of full-scale mobilization. But because presidents during the
Vietnam and Iraq wars believed they could also pursue expensive domestic
agendas, they did not reserve the resources needed for large-scale escalation.
In the both cases, too, civilian leaders were deeply skeptical about their
military counterparts and discounted their caution that a greater military
commitment would be needed. Finally, as wars drag on, public disenchantment
prevents presidents from mustering the political support escalation would
require. Their early decisions thus leave them with no alternative to their
current strategic commitment.

Self-Segregation
or Deliberation? Blog Readership, Participation, and Polarization in American
Politics

Eric Lawrence, John Sides and Henry Farrell

March 2010

ABSTRACT

Political
scientists and political theorists debate the relationship between
participation and deliberation among citizens with different political
viewpoints. Blogs provide an important testing ground for their claims. We
examine deliberation, polarization, and political participation among blog
readers. We find that blog readers gravitate toward blogs that accord with
their political beliefs. Few read blogs on both the left and right of the
ideological spectrum. Furthermore, those who read left-wing blogs and those who
read right-wing blogs are ideologically far apart. Blog readers are more
polarized than either non-blog-readers or consumers of various television news
programs, and roughly as polarized as US senators. Blog readers also
participate more in politics than non-blog readers. Readers of blogs of
different ideological dispositions do not participate less than those who read
only blogs of one ideological disposition. Instead, readers of both left- and
right-wing blogs and readers of exclusively leftwing blogs participate at
similar levels, and both participate more than readers of exclusively
right-wing blogs. This may reflect social movement-building efforts by
left-wing bloggers.

 

From The Quarterly Journal of Political Science

 

Democratic
Accountability in Open Economies

Thomas Sattler, Patrick T. Brandt and John
R. Freeman

 

March, 2010

 

ABSTRACT

We analyze democratic accountability in open economies based on different
hypotheses about political evaluations and government responsiveness.
Specifically, we assess whether citizens primarily rely on government policies
or if they focus on economic outcomes resulting from these policies to evaluate
governments. Our empirical analysis relies on Bayesian structural vector
autoregression models for the British economy, aggregate monthly measures of
public opinion, and economic evaluations from 1984 to 2006. We find that voters
continuously monitor and strongly respond contemporaneously to changes in
monetary and fiscal policies, but less to changes in macroeconomic outcomes.
Voters also respond to policies differently when institutions change. When the
Bank of England became politically independent, citizens shifted their
attention toward fiscal policy, and the role of monetary policy in their
evaluations decreased significantly. Finally, politicians respond to voting
behavior by adjusting their policies in a sensible way. When vote intentions
and approval decrease, the government reacts to the public by adjusting fiscal
policy and, before the Bank of England became independent, also monetary
policy.

 

From Political Research Quarterly

 

Changing Mass Attitudes and Democratic Deepening

Matthew D. Fails and Heather Nicole Pierce

 

March 2010

ABSTRACT

A
large literature evaluates the correlates of mass attitudes toward
democracy because such attitudes are regarded as critical for the
stability and depth of democratic regimes. This article uses
cross-national public opinion surveys to conduct the first comprehensive
test of this conventional wisdom. The authors examine whether
aggregate levels of democratic legitimacy are related to the level,
stability, and deepening of democracy and find no empirical support
for these theoretical expectations. Rather, the authors find
evidence that legitimacy attitudes are significantly shaped by the
prior institutionalization of democracy, suggesting that the
existing literature may have reversed the direction of the causal
arrow.

“Pretty Prudent” or Rhetorically Responsive? The
American Public’s Support for Military Action

A. Cooper Drury, L. Marvin Overby, Adrian Ang, and
Yitan Li

ABSTRACT

In the United States, public support can play a crucial role in
the decisions to initiate and terminate military action. Some scholars
argue that the public holds “prudent” opinions regarding
the use of the military–supporting efforts to stop aggression but
not to engage in nation building. We argue that what seems like a
“prudent” opinion may be driven more by the White House’s
rhetoric. Experimental tests show that the rhetorical complexity has
a more powerful impact on the respondent’s support for military
action than the actual policy goal, although this result is
substantially tempered by political awareness.


POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – FEBRUARY 2010

From Political
Psychology

 

Predicting Election Outcomes from Positive and Negative
Trait Assessments of Candidate Images

 

Kyle Mattes, Michael Spezio,
Hackjin Kim, Alexander Todorov, Ralph Adolphs and
R. Michael Alvarez

 

February 2010

ABSTRACT

Conventional wisdom, and a growing body
of behavioral research, suggests that the nonverbal image of a candidate
influences voter decision making. We presented subjects with images of
political candidates and asked them to make four trait judgments based solely
on viewing the photographs. Subjects were asked which of the two faces
exhibited more competence, attractiveness, deceitfulness, and threat, which are
arguably four of the most salient attributes that can be conveyed by faces.
When we compared our subjects’ choices to the actual election outcomes, we
found that the candidates chosen as more likely to physically threaten the
subjects actually lost 65% of the real elections. As expected, our findings
support the conclusions of
Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, and Hall (2005) by showing a positive correlation between the competence judgments
and the real election outcomes. Surprisingly, attractiveness was correlated
with losing elections, with the effect being driven by faces of candidates who
looked politically incompetent yet personally attractive. Our findings have
implications for future research on negative political communication, as they
suggest that both threatening first impressions and fleeting impressions of
attractiveness can harm a candidate’s electoral chances

 

From The American Political Science
Review

 

Personality and
Political Attitudes: Relationships Across Issue Domains and Political Contexts

Alan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, David Doherty, Conor M. Dowling and
Shang E. Ha

February 2010

Abstract

Previous research on personality traits and political attitudes has largely
focused on the direct relationships between traits and ideological
self-placement. There are theoretical reasons, however, to suspect that the
relationships between personality traits and political attitudes (1) vary
across issue domains and (2) depend on contextual factors that affect the
meaning of political stimuli. In this study, we provide an explicit theoretical
framework for formulating hypotheses about these differential effects. We then
leverage the power of an unusually large national survey of registered voters
to examine how the relationships between Big Five personality traits and
political attitudes differ across issue domains and social contexts (as defined
by racial groups). We confirm some important previous findings regarding
personality and political ideology, find clear evidence that Big Five traits
affect economic and social attitudes differently, show that the effect of Big
Five traits is often as large as that of education or income in predicting
ideology, and demonstrate that the relationships between Big Five traits and
ideology vary substantially between white and black respondents.

 

From Public
Opinion Quarterly

 

Perceptions about
the Amount of Interracial Prejudice Depend on Racial Group Membership and Question Order

David C. Wilson

February 2010  

Few studies have attempted to examine how racial
group membership may interact with survey context to influence
responses to questions about race. Analyzing over 9,000 respondents
from split-ballot experiments embedded in national polls, this
research examines the extent to which question order interacts with
one’s self-reported racial group to influence beliefs about the
amount of interracial prejudice that exists between Blacks and
Whites. The results show that in-group members (e.g., Blacks) tend
to view out-group members (e.g., Whites) as having more dislike
toward their in-group (e.g., Whites dislike Blacks) only when the
in-group is asked about first–a contrast. When in-group members
(e.g., Blacks) are evaluated after out-groups (e.g., Whites), they
will view their in-group’s dislike as similar to that of the
out-groups–an assimilation. The results serve to remind survey
researchers and practitioners of the careful attention that must be
paid to context and response biases.

 

From The British Journal of
Political Science

 

The Political
Conditionality of Mass Media Influence: When Do Parties Follow Mass Media
Attention?

Christoffer Green-Pedersen and
Rune Stubager

February 2010

ABSTRACT

Claims regarding the power of the mass media in contemporary politics are
much more frequent than research actually analysing the influence of mass media
on politics. Building upon the notion of issue ownership, this article argues
that the capacity of the mass media to influence the respective agendas of
political parties is conditioned upon the interests of the political parties.
Media attention to an issue generates attention from political parties when the
issue is one that political parties have an interest in politicizing in the
first place. The argument of the article is supported in a time-series study of
mass media influence on the opposition parties’ agenda in Denmark over a
twenty-year period.

 

From Political Behavior

 

How Explicit
Racial Prejudice Hurt Obama in the 2008 Election

Spencer Piston

February 2010

Abstract

Some commentators claim that white Americans put prejudice behind them when
evaluating presidential candidates in 2008. Previous research examining whether
white racism hurts black candidates has yielded mixed results. Fortunately, the
presidential candidacy of Barack Obama provides an opportunity to examine more
rigorously whether prejudice disadvantages black candidates. I also make use of
an innovation in the measurement of racial stereotypes in the 2008 American
National Election Studies survey, which yields higher levels of reporting of
racial stereotypes among white respondents. I find that negative stereotypes
about blacks significantly eroded white support for Barack Obama. Further, racial
stereotypes do not predict support for previous Democratic presidential
candidates or current prominent Democrats, indicating that white voters
punished Obama for his race rather than his party affiliation. Finally,
prejudice had a particularly large impact on the voting decisions of
Independents and a substantial impact on Democrats but very little influence on
Republicans.

 

From Politics
& Policy

 

The Anti-Immigrant Fervor in Georgia: Return of the
Nativist or Just Politics as Usual?

 

Debra Sabia

 

February 2010

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a review of various
literatures on immigration, immigration policy formation, and immigrant
reception with a particular focus on the state of Georgia. Existing scholarship
has largely failed to explain why immigration policy outcomes have varied from
state to state or how underlying factors might influence immigrant assimilation
or exclusion. In the case of Georgia, the legislative response to newcomers has
become increasingly inhospitable. What factors may account for this culture of
exclusion? What variables have influenced Georgia officials to take up the
anti-immigrant cause? What has been the impact on the Hispanic community, and,
finally, how may policy consequences influence future immigrant legislation in
Georgia?


POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH – JANUARY 2010

From PS: Political Science &
Politics

 

Spotlight: Who Supports Health Reform?

David
W. Brady and Daniel P. Kessler

January
2010

Abstract

In
this article, we report results from a new study that surveyed a large,
national sample of American adults about their willingness to pay for health
reform. As in previous work, we find that self-identified Republicans, older
Americans, and high-income Americans are less supportive of reform. However,
these basic findings mask three important features of public opinion. First,
income has a substantial effect on support for reform, even holding political
affiliation constant. Indeed, income is the most important determinant of
support for reform. Second, the negative effects of income on support for
reform begin early in the income distribution, at annual family income levels
of $25,000 to $50,000. Third, although older Americans have a less favorable
view of reform than the young, much of their opposition is due to dislike of
large policy changes than to reform per se.

Obama’s Missed
Landslide: A Racial Cost?

Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Charles Tien and Richard Nadeau

January 2010

Abstract

Barack Obama was denied a landslide victory in the 2008 presidential
election. In the face of economic and political woe without precedent in the
post-World War II period, the expectation of an overwhelming win was not
unreasonable. He did win, but with just a 52.9 percentage point share of the
total popular vote. We argue a landslide was taken from Obama because of race
prejudice. In our article, we first quantify the extent of the actual Obama
margin. Then we make a case for why it should have been larger. After reviewing
evidence of racial bias in voter attitudes and behavior, we conclude that, in a
racially blind society, Obama would likely have achieved a landslide.

 

From The American Journal of Political Science

 

 

After
Enactment: The Lives and Deaths of Federal Programs

 

Christopher R. Berry, Barry C. Burden, William G. Howell

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

While many scholars have
focused on the production of legislation, we explore life after enactment.
Contrary to the prevailing view that federal programs are indissoluble, we show
that programmatic restructurings and terminations are commonplace. In addition,
we observe significant changes in programmatic appropriations. We suggest that
a sitting congress is most likely to transform, kill, or cut programs inherited
from an enacting congress when its partisan composition differs substantially.
To test this claim, we examine the postenactment histories of every federal
domestic program established between 1971 and 2003, using a new dataset that
distinguishes program death from restructuring. Consistent with our
predictions, we find that changes in the partisan composition of congresses
have a strong influence on program durability and size. We thus dispel the
notion that federal programs are everlasting while providing a plausible
coalition-based account for their evolution.

The
New Racial Calculus: Electoral Institutions and Black Representation in Local
Legislatures

 

Melissa J. Marschall, Anirudh V. S. Ruhil
and
Paru R. Shah

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

In this study we revisit the
question of black representation on city councils and school boards using a
novel substantive and methodological approach and longitudinal data for a
sample of over 300 boards and councils. Conceptualizing black representation as
a two-stage process, we fit Mullahy’s hurdle Poisson models to explain whether
and to what extent blacks achieve representation in local legislatures. We find
that while the size of the black population and electoral arrangements matter
more than ever, especially for overcoming the representational hurdle, the
extent to which the black population is concentrated is also strongly
associated with black council representation. Further, whereas black resources
and opportunities to build “rainbow” coalitions with Latinos or
liberal whites are marginally if at all related to black legislative
representation, we find that legislative size is an underappreciated mechanism
by which to increase representation, particularly in at-large systems, and is
perhaps the best predictor of moving towards additional representation.

 

Partisanship,
Political Control, and Economic Assessments

 

Alan S. Gerber and Gregory A. Huber

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

Previous research shows that partisans rate
the economy more favorably when their party holds power. There are several
explanations for this association, including use of different evaluative
criteria, selective perception, selective exposure to information, correlations
between economic experiences and partisanship, and partisan bias in survey
responses. We use a panel survey around the November 2006 election to measure
changes in economic expectations and behavioral intentions after an
unanticipated shift in political power. Using this design, we can observe
whether the association between partisanship and economic assessments holds
when some leading mechanisms thought to bring it about are excluded. We find
that there are large and statistically significant partisan differences in how
economic assessments and behavioral intentions are revised immediately
following the Democratic takeover of Congress. We conclude that this pattern of
partisan response suggests partisan differences in perceptions of the economic
competence of the parties, rather than alternative mechanisms.

 

From American
Journal of Political Science

 

Using Experiments to Estimate the
Effects of Education on Voter Turnout

 

Rachel
Milstein Sondheimer and Donald P. Green

 

January
2010

Copyright © 2010 Midwest Political Science
Association

ABSTRACT

The powerful relationship between education and
voter turnout is arguably the most well-documented and robust finding in
American survey research. Yet the causal interpretation of this relationship
remains controversial, with many authors suggesting that the apparent link
between education and turnout is spurious. In contrast to previous work, which
has relied on observational data to assess the effect of education on voter
turnout, this article analyzes two randomized experiments and one
quasi-experiment in which educational attainment was altered exogenously. We
track the children in these experiments over the long term, examining their
voting rates as adults. In all three studies, we find that exogenously induced
changes in high school graduation rates have powerful effects on voter turnout
rates. These results imply that the correlation between education and turnout
is indeed causal. We discuss some of the pathways by which education may
transmit its influence
.

Ideological
Congruence and Electoral Institutions

 

Matt
Golder and Jacek Stramski

 

January
2010

Copyright © 2010 Midwest Political Science
Association

ABSTRACT

Although the literature examining the relationship
between ideological congruence and electoral rules is quite large, relatively
little attention has been paid to how congruence should be conceptualized. As
we demonstrate, empirical results regarding ideological congruence can depend
on exactly how scholars conceptualize and measure it. In addition to clarifying
various aspects of how scholars currently conceptualize congruence, we
introduce a new conceptualization and measure of congruence that captures a
long tradition in democratic theory emphasizing the ideal of having a
legislature that accurately reflects the preferences of the citizenry as a
whole. Our new measure is the direct counterpart for congruence of the
vote-seat disproportionality measures so heavily used in comparative studies of
representation. Using particularly appropriate data from the
 Comparative Study of
Electoral Systems, we find that
governments in proportional democracies are not substantively more congruent
than those in majoritarian democracies. Proportional democracies are, however,
characterized by more representative legislatures.

 

 

From The
Journal of Politics

 

Two
Types of Neutrality: Ambivalence versus Indifference and Political
Participation

Sung-jin Yoo

 

January 5,
2010

Abstract

The traditional attitude
theory has a serious flaw as a guide for the study of political behavior. It is
unable to distinguish two types of neutrality: ambivalence (balance of positive
and negative affect) and indifference (lack of either affect). A recent theory
on attitudes offers a solution with its premise that individuals are capable of
holding positive and negative attitudes about a single object simultaneously
and independently. This two-dimensional theory suggests that individuals with
an ambivalent attitude differ fundamentally from those with an indifferent
attitude. I find that ambivalent citizens are far more likely to turn out to
vote in elections than are indifferent ones. It is only indifferent
individuals, lacking any affect for parties and candidates, who exhibit the low
turnout expected of those with no clear preference. Being conflicted about
parties and candidates does not pose much of a barrier to casting a vote.

 

Mobilizing Pasadena Democrats:
Measuring The Effects of Partisan Campaign Contacts

 

R. Michael
Alvarez, Asa Hopkins and Betsy Sinclair

 

January
2010

 

ABSTRACT

 

This
paper examines the effect of an entire campaign using a randomized field
experiment where the treatment consists of campaign decisions made by a
campaign manager. In contrast to the majority of the field experiments found in
the contemporary get-out-the-vote literature, this paper studies the actual
behavior of a campaign within a particular election as opposed to studying
particular mobilization tactics. Thus, the campaign itself chooses the method
used to contact each individual within the randomly assigned treatment group.
Contacts are made via face-to-face canvassing, phone calls, e-mails, and door
hangers and consist of experienced volunteers making partisan appeals. We
observe a large treatment effect of campaign contact despite a small number of
face-to-face contacts, suggesting that the targeting strategy of the campaign
manager is particularly effective.

 

Race, Environment, and
Interracial Trust

 

Thomas
J. Rudolph and Elizabeth Popp

 

January
2010

 

ABSTRACT

 

Racial
diversity and interpersonal trust are often heralded as virtues in liberal
societies. Recent research suggests, however, that such diversity may impede
the development of interpersonal trust. Using multilevel modeling, this article
explores whether community heterogeneity is inherently inimical to the
formation of interracial trust or whether its ill effects can be mitigated or
even reversed by certain individual-level characteristics. We find minority
concentration and minority empowerment have substantively different impacts on
interracial trust and that their effects vary across racial groups. The pattern
of these effects suggests that minority concentration may not be viewed as a
threat. We further find that the negative effects of minority concentration on
interracial trust are counteracted by interracial contact. Collectively, our
results suggest that the challenges posed by racial diversity to interracial
trust are not insurmountable.

 

From The Journal
of Politics

 

The Global Economy, Competency, and the Economic Vote

Raymond
M. Duch and Randy Stevenson

January
2010

ABSTRACT

Working
within a selection model of economic voting we propose explanations for the
cross-national and dynamic variations in the magnitude of the vote that have
puzzled students of comparative voting behavior. Our theory suggests that
unexpected shocks to the economy inform the economic vote which implies that
voters are able to resolve a signal extraction problem: determine the extent to
which these shocks are the result of incumbent competency as opposed to
exogenous shocks to the economy. We assume that voters have information on the
overall variance in shocks to the macroeconomy and that they use this signal to
weight the importance of economic shocks in their vote decision. Voters are
also hypothesized to recognize that higher exposure to global trade influences
reduces the magnitude of the incumbent competency signal. We provide empirical
evidence demonstrating that voters are able to discern significant variation in
macroeconomic outcomes in order to perform this signal extraction task: We
analyze a six-nation survey conducted by the authors that was designed to
assess whether voters are attentive to variance in economic outcomes and
whether these in fact conditioned their economic vote. Secondly we examine
economic time series from 19 countries over the 1979-2005 period, demonstrating
that variances in the macroeconomic series explain contextual variations in the
economic vote as our theory hypothesizes. Finally, the essay demonstrates that
open economies, which are more subject to exogenous economic shocks, have a
smaller economic vote than countries with economies less dependent on global
trade. 

 

From Political
Behavior

 

The Contextual Causes of Issue and Party
Voting in American Presidential Elections

Benjamin Highton

January 2010 

Abstract  This paper analyzes the influence of the two most commonly
examined causes of presidential vote choice, policy preferences and party identification.
The focus is on change across elections in order to assess how the effects of
issues and partisanship respond to the larger political context in which voters
make their decisions. In contrast to party centric views of politics, I find
little direct responsiveness to party issue contrast and substantial influence
of candidate issue contrast. Further, I find that leading hypotheses for the
“resurgence in partisanship” are not consistent with some important facts
suggesting that the explanation remains elusive.

The Dynamics of Critical Realignments:
An Analysis Across Time and Space

David Darmofal 
and Peter F. Nardulli

January 2010 

ABSTRACT

 

Much of the scholarly interest in
critical realignments results from the pivotal role that ordinary citizens play
during these periods. By altering their voting behavior, citizens hold
political elites accountable and forge non-incremental change in policy
outputs. A central question regarding realignments is thus how are citizens
changing their behavior to hold elites accountable? Are citizens producing
realignments by converting from one party to the opposition? Are previous
non-voters becoming mobilized in response to emerging issues or crises? Or are
one party’s supporters disproportionately abstaining from voting and altering
the partisan balance in the process? This article makes four central
contributions to our understanding of these realignment processes, or dynamics.
We present a theoretical framework for the analysis of realignment dynamics, based
upon the Michigan model of voting and its conception of the normal vote. Where
previous dynamics studies have collectively only examined two realignments, we
examine the dynamics of all presidential realignments in American electoral
history. Where previous studies have often focused on national, sectional, or
state levels of analysis, we focus on city- and county-level realignments, a
critical advancement for an inherently local-level phenomenon such as critical
realignments. Finally, unlike previous studies, we identify the factors that
promote particular realignment dynamics. We find that the conversion of active
partisans has produced most of the enduring change in voting behavior in the
United States, with the relative contribution of different dynamics varying
both across time and space. Political factors such as the strength of state and
local parties and demographic factors such as changes in the size of local
immigrant populations have each favored particular realignment dynamics in
American electoral history.

 

Does Economic Inequality Depress Electoral Participation?
Testing the Schattschneider Hypothesis

 

Frederick Solt

 

January 2010

 

ABSTRACT  

 

Nearly a half-century ago, E.E.
Schattschneider wrote that the high abstention and large differences between
the rates of electoral participation of richer and poorer citizens found in the
United States were caused by high levels of economic inequality. Despite
increasing inequality and stagnant or declining voting rates since then,
Schattschneider’s hypothesis remains largely untested. This article takes
advantage of the variation in inequality across states and over time to remedy
this oversight. Using a multilevel analysis that combines aspects of state
context with individual survey responses in 144 gubernatorial elections, it
finds that citizens of states with greater income inequality are less likely to
vote and that income inequality increases income bias in the electorate,
lending empirical support to Schattschneider’s argument.

 

Revisiting the Political Theory of Party Identification

 

Aaron C. Weinschenk

 

January 2010

 

ABSTRACT

 

Recently, Lewis-Beck et al. (The
American Voter Revisited, 2008b) re-created The American Voter using
contemporary data. Although these scholars ultimately conclude that voters
today behave in ways that are consistent with the account of voting behavior
presented in The American Voter, their work nonetheless highlights the
importance and value of re-examining past ideas. Given that Lewis-Beck et al.
have re-tested the findings of The American Voter, it is both timely and
worthwhile to re-examine Fiorina’s (Retrospective voting in American national
elections, 1981) political theory of party identification, which is often seen
as a critique of the theory of party identification presented in The American
Voter, using newly available panel data. In this paper, I re-examine Fiorina’s
(Retrospective voting in American national elections, 1981) political theory of
party identification using data from the 2000-2002-2004 NES panel study. In
addition to applying Fiorina’s approach to party identification to new data, as
a more robust test of Fiorina’s theory, I develop a model of party
identification where changes in party identification are modeled as a function
of the actual changes in retrospective political evaluations. Overall, my
findings are broadly consistent with the findings from Fiorina’s original model
of party identification; however, my analysis suggests that the distribution of
opinions in the electorate and elite signals may be important to changes in
party identification.  

 

 

From
Political Psychology

 

 

Predicting the Vote through Implicit and Explicit
Attitudes: A Field Research

 

Michele Roccato and Cristina Zogmaister

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

Using the data collected by Itanes
on a sample of the Italian population, representative according to the main
sociodemographic variables, we analyzed the relations between voting intention,
explicit and implicit political attitudes, and voting behavior. Participants (N = 1,377) were interviewed twice, both before and
after the 2006 Italian National Election. The implicit attitudes (measured
using the IAT) were substantially as effective as voting intention, and more
effective than the explicit attitudes towards the main Italian political
leaders, in forecasting the Election official results. When used to predict
participants’ voting behavior, the IAT added a significant, although slight,
power to voting intention and explicit attitude. Inconsistency between explicit
and implicit attitudes exerted a negative influence on the probability of
having decided one’s voting behavior in the preelectoral poll; however, among
undecided participants, it did not significantly influence the probability of
delaying one’s voting decision and that of actually casting a valid vote.
Limits and possible developments of this research are discussed.

 

From Political
Science Quarterly

 

Changes in Public Opinion and the American Welfare State

Greg M. Shaw

January 2010

ABSTRACT

Analyzes the
relationship between American public opinion and several redistributive
programs from the beginning of the 1990s to the present. He concludes that the
recent political success of these programs has more to do with the workforce
attachment of the recipients and the nature of the assistance–cash versus
in-kind–than it does with means testing

 

 

From
Presidential Studies Quarterly

 

 

Polls and Elections: What’s the Matter with the White Working
Class? The Effects of Union Membership in the 2004 Presidential Election

 

Peter L.
Francia and Nathan S. Bigelow

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

Thomas Frank asserts that the Republican Party built a
winning coalition in recent elections by convincing white working-class voters
to cast their ballots on the basis of cultural wedge issues. Larry Bartels,
conversely, argues that economic issues remain paramount to white working-class
voters. The authors contend that the white working class is a more diverse bloc
than both Frank’s and Bartels’s analyses suggest. Using data from the 2004
National Election Pool, their results show that there are significant political
differences between white working-class voters in union households and those in
nonunion households.

 

From Political Science &
Politics

 

Who
Supports Health Reform?

David W. Brady
and Daniel P. Kessler Stanford University

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

In this article, we report results
from a new study that surveyed a large, national sample of American adults
about their willingness to pay for health reform. As in previous work, we find
that self-identified Republicans, older Americans, and high-income Americans
are less supportive of reform. However, these basic findings mask three
important features of public opinion. First, income has a substantial effect on
support for reform, even holding political affiliation constant. Indeed, income
is the most important determinant of support for reform. Second, the negative
effects of income on support for reform begin early in the income distribution,
at annual family income levels of $25,000 to $50,000. Third, although older
Americans have a less favorable view of reform than the young, much of their
opposition is due to dislike of large policy changes than to reform per se.

Obama’s
Missed Landslide: A Racial Cost?

Michael S.
Lewis-Beck
, Charles
Tien and Richard Nadeau

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

Barack Obama was denied a landslide victory in the
2008 presidential election. In the face of economic and political woe without
precedent in the post-World War II period, the expectation of an overwhelming
win was not unreasonable. He did win, but with just a 52.9 percentage point
share of the total popular vote. We argue a landslide was taken from Obama
because of race prejudice. In our article, we first quantify the extent of the
actual Obama margin. Then we make a case for why it should have been larger.
After reviewing evidence of racial bias in voter attitudes and behavior, we
conclude that, in a racially blind society, Obama would likely have achieved a
landslide.

 

From the
British Journal of Political Science

 

The Attribution of Credit and Blame to
Governments and Its Impact on Vote Choice

Michael Marsh
and James Tilley

 

January 2010

ABSTRACT

This article examines how voters attribute
credit and blame to governments for policy success and failure, and how this
affects their party support. Using panel data from Britain between 1997 and
2001 and Ireland between 2002 and 2007 to model attribution, the interaction
between partisanship and evaluation of performance is shown to be crucial.
Partisanship resolves incongruities between party support and policy evaluation
through selective attribution: favoured parties are not blamed for policy
failures and less favoured ones are not credited with policy success.
Furthermore, attributions caused defections from Labour over the 1997-2001
election cycle in Britain, and defections from the Fianna Fáil/Progressive
Democrat coalition over the 2002-07 election cycle in Ireland. Using models of
vote switching and controlling for partisanship to minimize endogeneity
problems, it is shown that attributed evaluations affect vote intention much
more than unattributed evaluations. This result holds across several policy
areas and both political systems.