bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Taking on Tobacco: Policy Entrepreneurship and the Tobacco Litigation
Authors: Spill Rorie L. , Licari Michael J. , Ray Leonard
Published: January 2007

The retrenchment of the federal government and the deregulation of many industries, beginning in the 1980s, afforded state elected officials opportunities for policy entrepreneurship. In particular, state attorneys general began to create policy The recent high profile tobacco litigation demonstrates the use of this oft-overlooked office for policy innovation. The legal effort initiated by the states against the tobacco industry sheds light on the role of the state attorney general in our federal system. While much of the literature on state politics continues to debate and examine the influence of the governor on policy innovation and diffusion, our study provides a clear example of policy innovation independent of the governor. Our event history analysis supports critiques of the field of state politics that note the lack of attention to other actors and the context surrounding state policy development. We find that the attorney general is an innovator in her own right, motivated by partisan self interest and working within the constraints of her role. Crises and events clearly mobilized activity among the attorneys general. The state attorneys general succeeded in creating a new national tobacco policy through litigation and these actors demand closer attention as policy entrepreneurs.
Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas
Authors: Giles Micheal W , Hettinger Virginia A. , Peppers Todd
Published: January 2007

The importance of lower federal courts in the policymaking process has stimulated extensive research programs focused on the process of selecting the judges of these courts and the factors influencing their decisions. The present study employs judicial decisionmaking in the U.S. Courts of Appeals as a window through which to reexamine the politics of selection to the lower courts. It differs from previous studies of selection in three ways. First, it takes advantage of recent innovations in measurement to go beyond reliance on political party as a measure of the preferences of actors in the selection process. Second, employing these new measures it examines the relative effects of the operation of policy and partisan agendas in the selection process. Third, a more complex model of selection is assessed than in most previous studies-one that expressly examines the role of senators and senatorial preferences in the selection process. The results clearly suggest that the politics of selection differ dramatically depending upon whether or not senatorial courtesy is in operation. The voting behavior of Courts of Appeals judges selected without senatorial courtesy is consistent with the operation of a presidential policy agenda. Among judges selected when senatorial courtesy is in play, the linkage between presidential preferences and judicial outcomes disappears.
Predicting Legislative Output in the First One-Hundred Days, 1897-1995
Authors: Frendreis John , Tatalovich Raymond , Schaff Jon
Published: January 2007

This study applies OLS and Poisson regression analysis to predicting the legislative output of Congress during the first Hundred Days of 1897 to 1995. The celebrated One Hundred Days of 1933 has not encouraged researchers to try to identify the structural, political, and incumbency variables that matter systematically across a range of Congresses. Here the 25 presidential Hundred Days are included along with 25 mid-term “hundred days” for comparative purposes. Four conclusions are reached. First, (1) adverse economic conditions and (2) greater electoral support for congressional candidates of the President's party are generally associated with higher levels of 100-days enactments. Second, there is a marked drop-off in 100-days enactments beginning with the 81st Congress, which we speculate may be attributed to the growth of subcommittees that added another layer to the legislative process. Third, Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt arguably exhibited some independent effects on Hundred Days enactments, whereas two other “skilled” legislative leaders-Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan-did not. Finally, the 1933 Hundred Days were exceptional but not unique because their productivity was linked to the confluence of systemic political variables and crisis conditions and, moreover, because the most important 1933 Hundred Days laws were Depression-specific enactments and not general purpose legislation.
Recruitment and Political Participation
Authors: Abramson Paul R. , Claggett William
Published: January 2007

Political elites spend considerable resources on recruitment activities. Existing research generally concludes that these activities are effective, but also suggests that political elites recruit strategically But strategic recruitment may undermine the impact of recruitment on participation if political elites use past participation as an indicator of the ability and willingness of individuals to respond to recruitment efforts since recruitment may then be directed toward individuals who would have participated without recruitment. Furthermore, the existing research fails to capture many recruitment efforts. It also has employed recruitment variables measuring requests for a political act different from the act used as the dependent variable. As a result, the actual effect of recruitment on participation is still in doubt. Using more appropriate data we demonstrate that recruitment of all types is shaped by past participation. However, while controlling for past participation does reduce the impact of recruitment on political participation being asked to take part or give money does expand political participation.
Committee Assignments and the Cost of Party Loyalty
Authors: Leighton Wayne A. , Lopez Edward J.
Published: January 2007

This article empirically investigates the relationship between the value of a representative's committee seats and his or her loyalty in voting with party leaders in the immediate past. We further investigate whether the reelection costs of voting with party leaders-and against constituentsmatters, compared to the value of committee seats. We first construct proxies for loyalty in voting, the re-election costs of party loyalty, and the value of members' committee assignments. We then estimate both continuous and discrete dependent variable models, controlling for leadership and tenure. Our results are twofold. First, we find a strong and positive relationship between loyalty and value of committee assignments. Second, we find a weaker, though still positive relationship between our measure of the electoral costs of loyalty and value of committee assignments. These results imply that there is some degree of signaling and/or exchange between party leaders and the rank-and-file membership to allocate parliamentary rights. We discuss some implications of these findings for theories of legislative organization and the legislator shirking literature.
Enabling Democracy: Disability and Voter Turnout
Authors: Schur Lisa , Shields Todd , Kruse Douglas , Schriner Kay
Published: January 2007

How likely are the millions of Americans with disabilities to participate in politics? What insights do their experiences provide into overall participation levels and determinants? This article reports the results of a nationally representative household telephone survey of 1,240 peoplestratified to include 700 people with disabilities-following the November 1998 elections. Voter turnout is found to be 20 percentage points lower among people with disabilities than among people without disabilities who have otherwise-similar demographic characteristics. Other standard predictors of turnout such as political efficacy and mobilization explain only a small portion of this gap. There is great variation within the disability sample: the lower turnout is concentrated among people with disabilities who are not employed or who are age 65 or older, who have had recent onset of a disabling condition, and who have difficulty going outside alone (despite the availability of absentee ballots). The findings suggest that disability, apart from imposing resource constraints, often has social and psychological effects that decrease voter turnout through decreased social capital and identification with mainstream society, particularly among senior citizens. The findings also support the idea that general mobility and major life transitions can be important influences on voter turnout in general, and raise questions on the causal relations among age, employment, efficacy, and voter turnout that should be a focus of future research.
Attitudinal Dimensions of Supreme Court Decision Making in Canada: The Lamer Court, 1991-1995
Authors: Ostberg C. L. , Wetstein Matthew E. , Ducat Craig R.
Published: January 2007

This article assesses whether the same attitudinal dimension that dominates judicial decision-making in the United States-liberalism/conservatism-is also prominent in the Canadian context. Specifically, the study examines the voting behavior of Canadian Supreme Court Justices in non-unanimous post-Charter cases decided during the first five terms of the Lamer Court (1991-95). After employing factor analysis, which disclosed three principal dimensions underlying the voting behavior of the justices, we closely examined the cases scoring most positively and most negatively on each of the factors. The principal dimensions underlying the Charter rulings suggest three prominent attitudinal conflicts dominate this Court period: communitarianism versus libertarianism, fair trial and criminal due process disputes, and judicial activism versus judicial self-restraint. These dimensions corroborate the findings of studies that have tracked the development of the Canadian Court in postCharter years.
The Ghent System and Union Membership in Europe, 1970-1996
Authors: Scruggs Lyle
Published: January 2007

In recent years, a fundamental basis of union strength, membership desity, has diverged dramatically across Europe. While most countries have witnessed stagnation or decline in unionization rates, a few countries have actually experienced steady gains, and achieved virtually full unioization. This article addresses the impact of one often acknowledged, but underemphasized, explanation for this divergence: differences in the way unemployment insurance is provided. Where unemployment insurance is compulsory and administered by the state, union membership typcally declined or stagnated during the last quarter of the twentieth cetury However, where unemployment insurance is voluntary and admiistered by trade unions (the so-called Ghent system), union membership grew quite steadily in the same period. I attribute this close association to the rise of unemployment risks, which has different implications for the decision to join or stay in unions, depending on the way unemploment insurance is funded. In the compulsory system, unions have much less control over the labor market, since they haVe no control over the conditions surrounding receipt of unemployment insurance.
Between Rationalism and Postmodernism: Hume's Political Science of our “Mixed Kind of Life”
Authors: Yenor Scott
Published: January 2007

Many recent studies of David Hume emphasize his criticism of Enlightenment rationalism, but these studies risk making Hume into a paleoconservative advocate of local attachment. This article suggests that Humes political science can best be seen as advocating a middle position between Enlightenment rationalism and postmodern relativism in its Rortyan and paleo-conservative manifestations. In his criticism of rationalism, Hume concedes much to postmodern views on foundations, history, and subjectivity Hume, however, still defends the possibility of philosophic detachment and therefore political science as against postmodern theories. Hume's criticism of Enlightenment rationalism permit him to affirm important truths about the human condition: that ours is a “mixed kind of life.” Based on this understanding of our mixed condition, Hume argues that the modern world is the home of the virtues most attuned to our complex and mixed nature.
Evangelicalism Meets the Continental Divide: Mloral and Economic Conservatism in the United States and Canada
Authors: Hoover Dennis R. , Martinez Michael D. , Reimer Samuel H. , Wald Kenneth D.
Published: January 2007

One of the most prominent ideas subsumed within the “American exceptionalism” literature is that evangelical Protestantism has always had an unusually powerful influence on U.S. political culture. In contrast, more recent literature points to the transnational influence of social movments, including those based in evangelicalism and other religious traditions. We examine the extent to which evangelical influences on moral conservatism and economic conservatism are similar in the United States and Canada. We employ regression models with slope dummy variables on data collected from comparable telephone surveys conducted in the two countries in 1996. Evangelical Protestantism's influence on moral conservatism and value priorities is transnational, but its influence on economic conservatism is distinctively American. Compositional analysis shows this pattern is largely shaped by the greater influence of self-identified fundamentalists among evangelical Protestants in the United States.
“Reading” “ Methods” “Texts”: ” How Research Methods Texts Construct Political Science
Authors: Schwartz-Shea Peregrine , Yanow Dvora
Published: January 2007

This article reports on an interpretive content analysis of fourteen research methods texts. We read them as a genre—exploring their structural and rhetorical features—to address two questions: To what extent do research methods texts reflect the breadth of methods used in political science and its fields? To what extent do they reflect contemporary ferment concerning questions of social reality and its “knowability?” These questions are intertwined with each other—epistemological positions on what counts as “science” affect the methods presented—and with the misleading distinction between “quantitative” and “qualitative” methods. Although these texts vary considerably in the degree to which they engage epistemologcal issues. all fourteen texts explicitly endorsed or implicitly assumed positivist definitions of science, which can be seen in their treatments of “qualitative” methods issues. Interpretive methods of data access and analysis are almost entirely “disappeared,” and positivist qualitative methods of data access receive treatment that ranges from poor to excellent. This textual consensus on positivism as the mode of scientific research in political science has implications for professional practice in four areas: the possibility of field-neutral methods texts, student research agendas, disciplinary meanings associated with “method” and “methodology,” and researchers' professional identity as political scientists.
Are Women Legislators Less Effective? Evidence from the U.S. House in the 103rd-105th Congress
Authors: Jeydel Alana , Taylor Andrew J.
Published: January 2007

We compare the ability of female and male members of the House of Representatives to turn policy preferences into law—something we label “legislative effectiveness.” The existing literature on women in American legislatures is opaque, with some scholars suggesting women are less effective than their male colleagues and others arguing they are just as effective. Utilizing data from the 103rd-105th Congresses—specifically, data on bill and amendment sponsorship and Stein and Bickers’ data on the distribution of federal domestic spending—we argue women House members are not demonstrably less effective than their male counterparts. Legislative effectiveness is the product of seniority, preferences, and membership in important House institutions.
The Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy: A Review and an Agenda
Authors: Burstein Paul
Published: January 2007

This article considers the impact of public opinion on public policy, asking: (1) how much impact it has; (2) how much the impact increases as the salience of issues increases; (3) to what extent the impact of public opinion may be negated by interest groups, social movement organizations, political parties, and elites; (4) whether responsiveness of governments to public opinion has changed over time; and (5) the extent to which our conclusions can be generalized. The source of data is publications published in major journals and included in major literature reviews, systematically coded to record the impact of public opinion on policy. The major findings include: the impact of public opinion is substantial; salience enhances the impact of public opinion; the impact of opinion remains strong even when the activities of political organizations and elites are taken into account; responsiveness appears not to have changed significantly over time; and the extent to which the conclusions can be generalized is limited. Gaps in our knowledge made apparent by the review are addressed in proposals for an agenda for future research.
Presidential Persuasion on Social Issues: A Two-Way Street?
Authors: Bailey Michael , Sigelman Lee , Wilcox Clyde
Published: January 2007

Although the ability of presidents to mobilize opinion on foreign policy issues is well documented, much less is known about presidents’ abilities to change public attitudes on social and moral issues. We explore the limits of presidential persuasiveness by examining President Clinton’s 1993 proposal to permit gay men and lesbian women to serve openly in the armed forces. Because the issue involved core values and religious beliefs, we might expect Clinton to have been unable to change voter preferences. However, we find evidence of a reciprocal relationship. Clinton’s support for the issue persuaded some members of the public to support the policy, even as it also caused others to think less favorably of him.
Punctuating the Congressional Agenda: Strategic Scheduling by House and Senate Leaders
Authors: Yackee Susan Webb
Published: January 2007

Despite general agreement that indicates deadlines “matter” to legislative behavior, there have been few empirical investigations of the use of deadlines in Congress. This study focuses on the use of recess deadlines (such as the August recess). I hypothesize that congressional leaders schedule votes before major recesses to create additional deadlines within the congressional term where votes can be taken under the pressures of time constraint. Using negative binomial regression, I demonstrate that “rushes” of roll call votes do take place before major recesses, and this preliminary evidence suggests that congressional leaders in the House use recesses as deadlines for most roll call votes. Initial findings also suggest that the powers of House leaders to control their voting schedule before recess deadlines outweigh the powers of their counterparts in the Senate.
Unraveling the Effects of the Internet on Political Participation?
Authors: Tolbert Caroline J. , Mcneal Ramona S.
Published: January 2007

While a long tradition of research documents the demographic and psychological determinants of political participation, there is also evidence to suggest that changes in communication technology may play an important role in influencing electoral behavior. We suggest traditional models of voter turnout may be under-specified with respect to changes in the media, especially use of new information technologies. The Internet may enhance voter information about candidates and elections, and in turn stimulate increased participation. Using NES survey data and multivariate analysis we find respondents with access to the Internet and online election news were significantly more likely to report voting in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections. This was true even after controlling for socioeconomic status, partisanship, attitudes, traditional media use, and state environmental factors. Simulations suggest access to Internet and online election news significantly increased the probability of voting by an average of 12 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively, in the 2000 election. The mobilizing potential of the Internet in 2000 was also associated with increased participation beyond voting. The findings help us understand how technology can impact voting and American political participation.
The Attitudinal Structure of African American Women Party Activists: The Impact of Race, Gender, and Religion
Authors: Clawson Rosalee A. , Clark John A.
Published: January 2007

Using data on grassroots party activists in the South, we explore the attitudinal structure of Democratic activists. Because of their socialization experiences with both racial and gender discrimination, we hypothesize that African American women will have a unique attitudinal structure regarding racial and gender issues when compared to other activist subgroups. Our results indicate the importance of race, gender, and the black church for understanding the structure of African American women’s political attitudes. Unlike whites or black men, African American women locate issues of race and gender on a single dimension; whether abortion attitudes fit on that dimension depends on the religious involvement of these activists.
Money Only Matters if You Want It To? Exposing the Normative Implications of Empirical Research
Authors: Smith Kevin B. , Granberg-Rademacker J. Scott
Published: January 2007

Political scientists have widely employed production function models as tools for theory confirmation and policy prescription. Although an important part of a growing literature within the discipline, production function research frequently produces contradictory results, an inconsistency that raises questions about the role of normative preferences in quantitative analysis. In this article we seek to explain the variation in the empirical results of production functions research in education. While recognizing normative values may have some influence in research, we argue this can be minimized if the conceptual and methodological weaknesses inherent in applying production function logic to the public sector are recognized and addressed.
Choosing Battlegrounds: Interest Group Lobbying Across Multiple Venues
Authors: Holyoke Thomas T.
Published: January 2007

Most research on the lobbying strategies of organized interests is venue specific. Yet organized interests frequently lobby in many different kinds of institutional venues, often on a single issue. I develop and test a model of the decision to lobby in one venue over another on a specific issue. Included in the model is the impact of oppositions from opposing interests in a particular venue, a factor that has not been considered in past research. I test the model with data from interviews with lobbyists for groups that were active on the issue of financial modernization between 1997 and 1999. I find significant variation in the amount of lobbying performed by different organizations on this issue in different venues; expectations of opposition from other interests are a significant factor in the decision to lobby in a given venue.
Multiple Theoretical Traditions in American Politics and Racial Policy Inequality
Authors: Hero Rodney
Published: January 2007

The American (national) political tradition emphasizes three major strands of thought (Smith 1993, 1997). Grasping the importance, interrelationships, and potential tensions of these multiple traditions is central to understanding American politics, and perhaps especially so concerning issues of racial equality. This article first delineates the philosophical traditions as they are manifested in major research on American state politics. It then examines the consequences of those traditions, especially the two generally viewed as the most prominent in American politics—civic republicanism and liberalism—for several indicators of public policy that directly address racial equality. The evidence considered strongly suggests that research emerging from the two major traditions overlooks an important side of American politics, that concerning racial inequality (ascriptive hierarchy). Also, the argument underscores the importance of proper attention to multiple traditions, generally, and race, specifically, in American (state) politics.
Agenda Setting in Congressional Elections: The Impact of Issues and Campaigns on Voting Behavior
Authors: Abbe Owen G. , Goodliffe Jay , Herrnson Paul S. , Patterson Kelly D.
Published: January 2007

Do issues matter? This article extends recent research on issue voting and campaign agenda-setting to voting decisions in congressional elections. We use a unique data set that includes information from a survey of candidates and campaign aides who competed in the 1998 House elections and a survey of individuals who voted in them. The study assesses the impact of campaign-specific variables on citizens’ voting decisions, while controlling for relevant attitudinal and demographic factors. We find that when a candidate and voter agree on what is the most important issue in the election, the voter is more likely to vote for that candidate if that candidate’s party “owns” the issue. The effects of shared issue priorities are especially strong for independent voters.
Social Networks and Political Participation: The Role of Social Interaction in Explaining Political Participation
Authors: Mcclurg Scott D.
Published: January 2007

The argument advanced in this article is that interaction in social networks has a strong, though often over-looked, influence on the propensity to participate in politics. Specifically, I argue that social interaction creates opportunities for individuals to gather information about politics that allows them to live beyond personal resource constraints, thereby supporting the political activity of many people. Using relational data from the South Bend Election Study, this article provides evidence that the effect of social interaction on participation is contingent on the amount of political discussion that occurs in social networks. Additional analysis shows the substantive and theoretical importance of such interaction by explaining how it is distinct from the effect of social group memberships and how it enhances the effect of individual education on the probability of participation. This key contribution of this article is to show that models of political participation that do not account for informal social interaction will be theoretically underspecified. It also shows that such interactions play a crucial role in explicating the role of other factors that predict participation, such as group membership and individual resources.
Productivity in the Workplace: Cops, Culture, Communication, Cooperation, and Collusion
Authors: Langbein Laura , Jorstad Connie
Published: January 2007

Both formal theory and experimental evidence have shown that repeated interactions among actors foster norms of trust and cooperation. But real-world empirical evidence regarding the substantive effects of repeated interaction is scant and fails to disentangle the components of “social capital.” Using data from a 1994 survey of urban police in three Caribbean countries, clustered by police stations, we regress measures of time spent on police work and of propensity to use excessive force on individual and aggregate-level measures of norms and communication and a size-related measure of opportunities for repeated interaction. We control for monitoring by superiors, task, experience, gender and other variables. We anticipate non-independent observations within police stations and heteroscedasticity between as expectations from the theory of social capital rather than simple statistical nuisances. Face-to-face communication at the individual and police-station level, norms at the individual and station level, and opportunities for repeated interaction, contribute to increased work effort by individual officers, and to reduction in their propensity to use excessive force. Monitoring by superiors has no impact on productivity, and may actually have an adverse effect on excessive force. “Social capital” is simultaneously an individual and aggregate phenomenon. In the presence of pro-social norms, social capital “trumps” monitoring as an effective tool of management. Fostering social capital among peers may reduce monitoring and other transactions costs within organizations, making them relatively more cost effective.
Women in Executive Office: Variation Across American States
Authors: Oxley Zoe M. , Fox Richard L.
Published: January 2007

The number of women serving in state-level executive office varies tremendously across the American states. Drawing upon a comparative politics framework developed by Pippa Norris and findings from analyses of women in U.S. state legislatures, we derive a set of hypotheses to explain this state variation. Our analysis of elections held between 1979 and 1998 demonstrates that women are more likely to run for executive office in states where more women are in the eligibility pool of candidates, and where the demands of gatekeepers and recruiting practices of political parties favor women’s candidacies. Furthermore, the likelihood that women win these elections is influenced by the supply of candidates, the demands of gatekeepers, and the characteristics of a state’s political system. We also conclude that the predictors of women in executive office have changed over time and that our explanations for state variation of women in these positions are more thorough for elections occurring before 1991.
Incumbent Contributions to the Congressional Campaign Committees, 1990-2000
Authors: Larson Bruce A.
Published: January 2007

House incumbents now regularly transfer significant sums of campaign money from their reelection accounts to the party campaign committees. This article conducts the first comprehensive exploration of this activity. After briefly reviewing the federal regulations that govern member contributions to the campaign committees, I present data for the 1989-1990 through 1999-2000 election cycles that illustrate the steep rise in these contributions. I then test several hypotheses about members’ willingness to support their parties financially in light of the electoral conflict between incumbents and parties described by Jacobson (1985-1986). I find that a member’s leadership status in the House and ability to raise “surplus” campaign dollars are the two most consistent determinants of his or her financial support for the party campaign committees.
Information Provision, Organizational Constraints, and the Decision to Submit an Amicus Curiae Brief in a U.S. Supreme Court Case
Authors: Hansford Thomas G.
Published: January 2007

How do organized interests select the Supreme Court cases in which to file amicus curiae briefs? Starting with the assumption that organized interests pursue policy influence, I argue that an organized interest will submit amicus curiae briefs in the cases that provide the greatest opportunity for the interest to influence the content of the majority opinion. Membership-based interests, however, will also have to consider the effect of their case-selection decisions on their ability to attract and retain membership support. I test my hypotheses with data on a large sample of organized interests and their amicus curiae brief filings in the 1991-1995 Supreme Court terms. The results of this analysis provide support for my hypotheses and indicate that organized interests seek out cases in which the justices are relatively information-poor. Membership-based interests also choose cases that allow for visible and apparently “successful” participation.
Constituency Diversity and Party Competition: A County and State Level Analysis
Authors: Aistrup Joseph A.
Published: January 2007

One of the staples of American politics is the theory that party competition is a function of constituency diversity. In Federalist #10 (see Rae and Taylor 1970: 7; Fiorina 1974: 89-119; Sullivan 1973) Madison emphasizes that increased constituency diversity facilitates factional dispute. As diversity increases, it weakens the ability of any single faction to represent the multifarious demands of people in a geographic area (The Federalist Papers 1961: 77-83). Despite this relatively simple and normatively pleasing explanatory perspective, and despite this theory’s broad acceptance in political science, the study of the relationship between constituency diversity and party competition has been one of the more elusive and sometimes contradictory research topics of the past 30 years. This article analyzes county level data from the 1970s and 1980s—the period that forms the basis of much of this literature—to assess the theoretical and empirical purchase of three of the dominant operational definitions for constituency diversity and then compares these county level findings with parallel state level analyses. I find that reformulated Lieberson/Sullivan social diversity indexes and Koetzle’s political diversity index produce similar results at the state and county levels of analysis. Moreover, these results are consistent with the theory that constituency diversity has a strong influence on the level of party competition.
The Limitations of the Deracialization Concept in the 2001 Los Angeles Mayoral Election
Authors: Austin Sharon D. Wright , Middleton Richard T.
Published: January 2007

In June 2001, Mexican American candidate Antonio Villaraigosa and white candidate James Hahn competed in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff election. Both were liberal Democrats seeking office in a political climate characterized by nonpartisan mayoral elections, a majority Latino population, and a long history of successful deracialized campaigns and biracial coalition politics. From 1973 to 1993, former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley utilized deracialized campaigns to develop a coalition of liberal white, African American, Latino, and Jewish voters. In June 2001, however, the coalitions supporting white candidate Hahn and Latino candidate Villaraigosa differed from the Bradley coalition. Whereas African Americans, moderate whites, and conservative whites preferred Hahn, the majority of Latinos and liberal Democrats voted for Villaraigosa. A Villaraigosa victory would have symbolized the evolving political power of Latinos both locally and nationally. In addition, Villaraigosa’s mayoralty would have resulted in an electoral and governing coalition dominated by white liberals and Latinos in Los Angeles. Although he won the plurality of votes in the primary, Villaraigosa lost the runoff after the Hahn campaign used racially-offensive ads to attack his integrity and character. We attempt to provide explanations for the loss of a Latino candidate to a white candidate who “played the race card” and the possible implications for the theory of deracialization. First, we examine the question, Why was Antonio Villaraigosa’s deracialized campaign unsuccessful? The concept of deracialization was developed to describe one useful method for developing citywide biracial and multiracial electoral coalitions. Candidates “deracialize” their campaigns by de-emphasizing racially-divisive issues in an attempt to garner crossover support from voters of other races while also receiving the lion’s share of support from voters of the candidate’s racial group. We hypothesize that Villaraigosa lost the runoff because he received a small percentage (less than 20 percent) of the black vote and failed to mobilize a turnout of 50 percent or more of the Latino voting-age population. We conclude with a discussion of the possible implications of Villaraigosa’s loss about the future usefulness of deracialized mayoral campaigns in racially-mixed cities.
Political Campaign Advertising Dynamics
Authors: Granato Jim , Wong M. C. Sunny
Published: January 2007

We investigate the effectiveness of political campaign advertisements. From findings in communications, political science, and psychology, we know that the relation between voters and campaign strategists is dynamic and evolves until voters’ views on a candidate crystallize. After that point, political campaign advertisements are ineffective. To capture this “dynamic” we develop an adaptive learning model that relates voters’ impression formation to expectations about candidate behavior, one form of which (rational expectations), renders political advertising ineffective. We treat rational expectations as a limiting result that supports the concept of crystallization. Our model assumes that voters misspecify their forecasts about a particular candidate’s attributes and campaign strategy. Over time voters can reach a rational expectations equilibrium about a candidate’s qualities and discount political advertising. We illustrate the learning dynamics using simulations. As one application of this approach we focus on the influence campaign message (strategy) volatility has on crystallization (i.e., reaching the rational expectations equilibrium). Our simulation results show that campaign message volatility has an important effect on crystallization. One implication is that crystallization is a fragile, special case result that can be altered by informational shocks during the campaign.
Public Opinion, Public Policy, and Organized Interests in the American States
Authors: Gray Virginia , Lowery David , Fellowes Matthew , Mcatee Andrea
Published: January 2007

This article examines whether organized interests alter the strong opinion-policy linkage observed by Erikson, Wright, and McIver (1993). We first replicate the EWM model circa 1980 with the addition of measures of interest organization density and diversity under a variety of specifications. We then extend the analysis to the contemporary period, using EWMs’ new public opinion data through 1999. To execute this second stage of the analysis, we construct a new index of policy liberalism circa 2000 comparable to EWMs’ 1980 measure. Our results suggest that interest community bias in favor of traditional economic interests modestly weakens policy liberalism responsiveness, but that simply having many organized interests registered to lobby may promote more liberal policy.
Tests of Vote-Buyer Theories of Coalition Formation in Legislatures
Authors: Wiseman Alan E.
Published: January 2007

Formal theories of “vote-buying” aim to explain legislative coalition building, and lobbying. While anecdotal evidence suggests that something approximating vote-buying occurs, these theories have not been subjected to substantial empirical tests. Using roll-call data from all House bills subject to votes on final passage in the House of Representatives in the 103rd Congress, this study tests the coalition size implications of vote-buying theories. The primary method of analysis is ordinary least squares. Variation in coalition size, as represented by the percentage of the chamber voting yea, is accounted for in a manner consistent with vote buying theories. By making an assumption about what kinds of legislation are likely to attract one, or multiple, vote-buyers, we are able to operationalize the number of vote-buyers lobbying on a given bill. Other theoretical predictors of coalition size are also entered into the analysis, and the results offer support for the family of theories. When controlling for different parliamentary procedures, bills that are likely to attract two vote-buyers generate coalitions that are approximately 6 percent larger than single vote-buyer bills.
War Casualties, Policy Positions, and the Fate of Legislators
Authors: Gartner Scott Sigmund , Segura Gary M. , Barratt Bethany A.
Published: January 2007

Politicians appear to anticipate that the public will hold them accountable for war deaths. Yet, little is known about why some politicians openly oppose costly conflicts while others do not and the difference this makes to their electoral fortunes. Examining U.S. Senate elections from 1966-1972, we find that state-level casualties, military experience, and a variety of other factors affect candidate positions on the Vietnam War. Challenger and incumbent positions are negatively related, suggesting that strategic considerations play a role in wartime policy formation. We also find that war plays a role in elections. Incumbents from states that experience higher casualties receive a smaller percentage of the vote, an effect ameliorated when the incumbent opposes the war and his or her opponent does not. Wartime casualties, we conclude, influence both the perceived cost of the war and its salience, affecting both candidate positions and elections, suggesting that selectorate/electorate-type arguments about war and domestic politics can apply to the US system.
Changing Patterns of Obligation and the Emergence of Individualism in American Political Thought
Authors: Barkalow Jordon B.
Published: January 2007

Students of American political thought have long noted changes in the goals pursued by colonial American communities. Relations between Americans and their communities, previously characterized by security and peaceful existence were transformed into relations grounded in economic well-being. This shift in focus had the effect of altering the relationship between individuals and their community. Obligating members to behave industriously has the effect of weakening the social, familial, religious, and political controls originally used to keep the “sinful” individual in check. These weakening ties were exacerbated by colonial developments in constitutional theory that contribute to the movement away from the religious origins of American political thought. This secularizing process paves the way for the introduction of individualism into American thinking prior to 1776.
Strategic Timing, Position-Taking, and Impeachment in the House of Representatives
Authors: Caldeira Gregory A. , Zorn Christopher
Published: January 2007

We examine the timing of members’ position-taking in the House of Representatives’ decision to impeach President Clinton. Based on our understanding of the goals of members and leaders, we expect members whose constituencies, interest group influences, and partisanship are in alignment to make their positions known quickly, and those with conflicting or ambiguous signals to delay. We further expect members’ electoral circumstances within their own party—the potential for a primary challenge—to condition the impact of interest-group connections on that timing. Our findings indicate that, while the influence of cross-pressures on timing was universal, Republicans who faced primaries in 1998 were more sensitive to the concerns of their political “base,” and less susceptible to cross-pressures, than were those unopposed within their own part y. We also show that, over and above the effects of ideology and partisanship, Republican members who delayed their announcements were more likely to split their votes between yeas and nays than those who took early positions.
Policy Balancing and Preferences for Party Control of Government
Authors: Carsey Thomas M. , Layman Geoffrey C.
Published: January 2007

Divided party control of government is one of the defining features of contemporary American politics. Of the competing theories offered to account for this phenomenon, the notion of policy balancing offered by Fiorina (1988, 1992, 1996) and Alesina and Rosenthal (1995) has garnered the most attention, though it has received limited empirical support. The lack of support stems in part from: (1) the failure to separate voter preferences for party control of government from the actual act of casting a straight or split ticket, (2) using suspect measures of preference for divided government, and (3) ignoring voters who support unified control of government regardless of which party has that control. In this article, we provide a direct test of the policy balancing thesis that addresses these issues. Specifically, we examine how citizen preferences for partisan, divided, or unconditional unified control of government depend upon their own ideological locations and their perceptions of the locations of the two parties. Using original data collected from a statewide survey in Illinois in 2000, we uncover clear support for the policy balancing argument.
Strategic Voting for Damage Control On the Supreme Court
Authors: Arrington Theodore S. , Brenner Saul
Published: January 2007

Prominent scholars argue that the Supreme Court justices vote insincerely and in favor of the majority at the conference vote in order to obtain either damage control over the content of the majority opinion or to conform to the majority. Those justices who cast their vote late in the order of voting at the conference are in a better position to behave this way because they are more likely to know which side will win. Using Spaeth’s Burger Court dataset we examine whether there is a statistical association between the order of voting of the justices and the extent to which they joined the winning coalition at the conference vote. We find little evidence of such an association using either bivariate or multivariate techniques and conclude that such behavior is exceedingly rare.
Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje
Authors: Beltran Cristina
Published: January 2007

“Hybridity” has become a popular concept among scholars of critical race theory and identity, particularly those studying Chicano identity. Some scholars claim that hybridity—premised on multiplicity and fluidity—represents a new approach to subjectivity, challenging the idea of a stable and unified subject. In “Patrolling Borders,” I argue that scholars are mistaken in their belief that “hybrid” or “bordered” identities are inherently transgressive or antiessentialist. By constructing a genealogy of Chicano hybridity (i.e., mestizaje) I show how Chicano nationalists produced a politicized subjectivity during the Chicano Movement that emerged as the basis for recent notions of hybridity put forward by writers like Gloria Anzaldúa. By tracing the historical construction of mestizaje, I show how hybridity continues to be a discursive practice capable of comfortably coexisting with dreams of privileged knowledge, order, and wholeness.
Connecting, Trusting, and Participating: The Direct and Interactive Effects of Social Associations
Authors: Kwak Nojin , Shah Dhavan V. , Holbert R. Lance
Published: January 2007

In recent years, research has come to recognize that nonpolitical associations have unintended but important consequences for citizens’ participation in public affairs. Scholars theorize that these associational activities—embedded within social networks and sustained by confidence in the motives of others—encourage and facilitate participation in civic life. This study tests and broadens these theses by (1) assessing the relative impact of different types of associational activities (i.e., informal socializing, public attendance, and religious participation) and (2) examining interactive relationships between these activities and generalized interpersonal trust. Findings show that all of these associational activities significantly contribute to civic engagement. Furthermore, all three interactions between the social associations and social trust are significant, indicating that those involved in associational activities are even more likely to become civic participants when they hold trusting attitudes toward others.