Showing papers in "American Journal of Political Science in 1994"

Ethnic Heterogeneity, District Magnitude, and the Number of Parties

Abstract: Recent events leading to the importation of democratic ideas and ideals by previously totalitarian states increase our interest in the ways in which electoral institutions influence party systems. However, even if we restrict our attention to Eastern Europe or the successor states of the Soviet empire, we encounter a range of social diversity – ethnic heterogeneity - that is as great as those in the set of countries examined in earlier studies that seek to identify the influence of electoral laws (c.f., Rae, Lijphart, and Taagepera and Shugart). Curiously, though, these earlier studies fail to ascertain whether and to what extent electoral laws mediate the influence of this heterogeneity. Hence, to develop a more pragmatic understanding of electoral institutions, we adopt the view of electoral laws as intervening structures and, using the data of these earlier analyses, we reconsider the role of one institutional parameter - district magnitude - that some researchers regard as the most important characteristic of an electoral system. Aside from the usual caveats about the limitations of our data, our primary conclusion is that district magnitude is not merely an important determinant of the number of parties that compete in a political system, but that it can offset the tendency of parties to multiply in heterogeneous societies.

Administrative Procedures, Information, and Agency Discretion

Abstract: This paper investigates the design of administrative procedures when policy consequences are uncertain. In general, when deciding how much discretion to delegate, legislators must trade off informational gains from agency expertise and distributive losses from bureaucratic drift. We show that when Congress has both ex post agenda control and access to information, it will delegate a large degree of discretionary authority to all agencies, regardless of differences in policy preferences. This "discretionary floor" rises as future events become more uncertain. We further show that the possibility of coalitional drift, or changing preferences of the median legislator, may lead either to "hard-wired" agencies with little discretionary authority or "soft-wired" agencies with large discretionary powers to set policy.

Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection: The Principal-Agent Problem Goes to War

Abstract: The problem of ensuring that chief executives act in accordance with the wishes of their constituency is particularly acute in the area of foreign intervention where the head of state can be expected to possess substantial information advantages. This paper presents a formal analysis of strategies that can be used to deter overly passive and overly aggressive executives and a discussion of their side effects. The typically large amount of uncertainty means that the constituency must base its decision to retain an executive on the outcome of a conflict and not on its apparent ex ante advisability. This uncertainty imposes a cost on the constituency, who may remove an effective, "innocent" executive unnecessarily, and it also imposes a cost on the well-meaning executive, who may be removed from office after making the best possible decision in a difficult case. The mechanism necessary to deter executive adventurism also causes the paradoxical "gambling for resurrection" effect, in which an unsuccessful war that a well-informed principal would terminate is continued because cessation would, given the current state of the world, cause the agent to be removed from office.

The Hierarchy of Justice: Testing a Principal-Agent Model of Supreme Court-Circuit Court Interactions

Abstract: We examine Supreme Court-circuit court interactions from a principal-agent perspective, employing a fact pattern analysis to determine the extent to which circuit courts follow their own policy preferences versus the extent that they follow the policy dictates of the Supreme Court. We then examine whether monitoring by the Supreme Court can affect those interactions. We find that the courts of appeals are highly responsive to the changing search and seizure policies of the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the strong independent effect of the ideologies of the judges gives evidence that judges do find opportunities to "shirk" to satisfy their own policy interests. We also find strong evidence that litigants play an active role in influencing monitoring by the Supreme Court.

Does Gender Make a Difference? An Experimental Examination of Sex Stereotypes and Press Patterns in Statewide Campaigns

Abstract: Do gender differences in news coverage and the candidates' sex influence people's perceptions of gubernatorial and senatorial candidates? To investigate this question, I conducted a series of experiments in which I manipulated both the type of coverage a candidate received and the candidate's sex. The results of these experiments suggest that people's perceptions of male and female candidates are influenced by patterns of news coverage and by people's sex stereotypes. Yet the impact of these two factors is different for incumbents and challengers and for gubernatorial and senatorial candidates. I find, for example, that gender differences in press coverage are more dramatic in Senate races and especially for Senate incumbents. These differences in coverage patterns lead to important disadvantages for female senatorial candidates. Sex stereotypes, on the other hand, always produce more positive evaluations of women candidates. These sex stereotypes are most prevalent for governors and lead to promising advantages in people's perceptions of female gubernatorial candidates.

Prospections, Retrospections, and Rationality: The "Bankers" Model of Presidential Approval Reconsidered

Abstract: MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson (1992) recently have challenged a long-standing conventional wisdom by claiming that sociotropic prospections dominate presidential approval models. Net of long-term expectations about the economy, judgments about its past performance are not significant. However, when nonstationarity in the time series of interest is taken into account, analyses of models similar to MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson's and analyses of an alternative error correction model both indicate that retrospections as well as prospections are influential. They also contend that the electorate forms its economic expectations according to a rational expectations model. This claim is unfounded because their analyses and data are inadequate for assessing it.

Public Attitudes toward Government Spending

Abstract: This study examines the nature, sources, and consequences of citizens' attitudes toward government spending. Data from the 1984 CPS National Election Study are used to perform a scaling analysis of mass spending preferences across a set of 10 public policies. The empirical results indicate that there is a coherent structure underlying citizens' attitudes toward social welfare spending. In contrast, spending preferences for nonwelfare programs are separate and largely unrelated concerns. I argue that this distinction is essential for understanding public opinion on government spending. And further analyses incorporating the difference between welfare and nonwelfare spending preferences provide important, theoretically relevant insights about the relationship between citizens in the mass public and stimuli in the political world.

Constraints on cabinet formation in parliamentary democracies

Abstract: Coalition theory typically treats political parties involved in government formation in parliamentary democracies as if they were unconstrained players in an institution-free world. Yet actual coalition options are often severely constrained by institutional arrangements and prior commitments. We develop a systematic account of different constraints on government formation and examine their frequency across 10 parliamentary democracies. Hypothetical and empirical examples demonstrate how a small number of constraints can dramatically reduce the range of coalition options and redistribute bargaining power among political parties. More adequate coalition theories need to recognize the effects of such constraints and to build on the theoretical lessons of the neoinstitutionalist approach to legislative behavior.

Scobit: An Alternative Estimator to Logit and Probit

Abstract: Logit and probit, the two most common techniques for estimation of models with a dichotomous dependent variable, impose the assumption that individuals with a probability of .5 of choosing either of two alternatives are most sensitive to changes in independent variables. This assumption is imposed by the estimation technique because both the logistic and normal density functions are symmetric about zero. Rather than let methodology dictate substantive assumptions, I propose an alternative distribution for the disturbances to the normal or logistic distribution. The resulting estimator developed here, scobit (or skewed-logit), is shown to be appropriate where individuals with any initial probability of choosing either of two alternatives are most sensitive to changes in independent variables. I then demonstrate that voters with initial probability of voting of less than .5 are most sensitive to changes in independent variables. And I examine whether individuals with low levels of education or high levels of education are most sensitive to changes in voting laws with respect to their probability of voting.

Golden Parachutes, Rubber Checks, and Strategic Retirements from the 102d House

Abstract: Political scientists have long been interested in the occupational decisions of politicians. Two events prior to the 1992 congressional elections brought journalists and the broader public into emotion-rich but data-poor discussions of how and why to achieve greater turnover in Congress. The House banking scandal gave rise to standard arguments that voters should "throw the bums out." An initially obscure provision in the Federal Election Campaign Act, which allowed certain grandfathered members personally to pocket their campaign war chests, gave rise to somewhat more sophisticated assertions about "buying the bums out." Using preelection data on incumbents' decisions to retire or seek reelection, we estimate the effects of these special features of the 1992 election while improving upon prior estimates of strategic retirements more generally. By embedding an explicit occupational choice model into a maximum-likelihood equation, we find strong evidence of strategic retirements, and we quantify precisely the turnover that can be attributed to rubber checks and golden parachutes.

"Political Leadership and Representation in West European Democracies: A Test of Three Models of Voting"

Abstract: Recently the spatial theory of elections has been challenged by critics who dispute the realism of its assumptions and the empirical veracity of its predictions. This paper critically evaluates two theoretical alternatives to the spatial model and subjects these to a series of strategic tests using data from six West European party systems. It is argued that a model of representational policy leadership, which combines insights from the spatial and the "directional" theories of voting, best accounts for the observed patterns of voting. Thus, voters prefer parties that offer clear and intense political alternatives, but they turn away from parties that deviate too radically from voters' own stated policy positions. In terms of party strategies, it is demonstrated that spatial theorems, contrary to claims made for the directional theory, hold for all three models of voting. The policy leadership model, however, does explain why parties in multiparty systems tend to be more dispersed than predicted in spatial theory.

Macroeconomic Conditions and Electoral Politics in East Central Europe

Abstract: While the economic voting literature is extensive, scholars have paid relatively little attention to the question of how or whether the economy affects voting behavior in nonWestern democracies. I address this issue by examining national elections in three recent East Central European democracies: Bulgaria, the former Czech and Slovak Federated Republic, and Poland. Using aggregate interregional data, the macroeconomic impact on turnout and voter choice is assessed in elections held from 1990 to 1992. I argue that the effect of economic adversity on turnout is withdrawal and that the effect on party choice is punishment for incumbents held responsible for economic reform and reward for both mainstream and extremist challengers. Implications for the study of elections and the future of electoral politics in East Central Europe are discussed.

Validity Assessment of a Machine-Coded Event Data Set for the Middle East, 1982-92

Abstract: This paper is a study of the validity of a machine-coded event data series for six Middle Eastern actors and the United States. The series is based on Reuters newswire story leads coded into the WEIS categories. The face validity of the data is assessed by examining the monthly net cooperation scores based on Goldstein's (1992) scale in comparison to narrative accounts of the interactions between the actors; the event data series clearly shows the major patterns of political interaction. The machinecoded data are also compared to a human-coded WEIS data set based on the The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Almost all dyads show a statistically significant correlation between the number of events reported by the two series, as well as the number of cooperative events. About half of the dyads show significant correlation in net cooperation and the number of conflictual events; many of these differences appear to be due to the higher density of events in Reuters. Finally, the machine-coded and WEIS data sets are used in two statistical time series studies and are shown to produce generally comparable results. Validity Assessment... 2

Rationalization and Derivation Processes in Survey Studies of Political Candidate Evaluation

Abstract: In order to assess the determinants of voters' candidate preferences, some analysts have examined responses to open-ended questions that ask citizens what might make them vote for or against a particular candidate. However, psychological theory and research suggest that the success of these reports in predicting voting may be because they reflect rationalizations of preferences rather than the reasons that give rise to them. And indeed, using data from a panel survey conducted during the 1990 elections in Ohio, we found that voters' reports of the reasons for their preferences were principally rationalizations. Rationalization was especially strong among politically involved voters and those with little exposure to the media. Derivation of preferences from likes and dislikes was most pronounced among voters who made up their minds late in the campaign. These findings support the on-line model of voter decision making and suggest that open-ended questions asking voters about their likes and dislikes are not well suited to revealing the real reasons for their preferences.

An Empirical Investigation of the Dynamics of PAC Contributions

Abstract: We study the extent to which PACs target the members and chairs of particular congressional committees, by estimating the effects of changes in a representative's committee and leadership assignments on changes in the pattern of PAC contributions received by the representative. We find strong evidence that ties exist between certain types of PACs and congressional committees. In addition, the analysis reveals interesting asymmetries in the propensity of PACs to add or drop members who change their committee assignments.

Issue Evolution Reconsidered: Racial Attitudes and Partisanship in the U.S. Electorate

Abstract: Carmines and Stimson's theory of racial issue evolution has strongly influenced scholarly and popular interpretations of US party politics The central proposition of this theory is that racial attitudes have shaped the party loyalties of voters who have entered the electorate since 1964 Using data from the 1980 and 1988 American National Election Studies, this paper undertakes a test of the theory of racial issue evolution by examining the relationships between racial attitudes and party identification among white US citizens The evidence presented in this paper shows that racial attitudes had very little influence on party identification among either younger or older whites Other issues, especially those involving the scope of the welfare state and national security, played a much larger role in driving many whites away from the Democratic party during the 1980s Furthermore, racial attitudes had a negligible impact on whites' candidate preference in the 1988 presidential election

Retaliating against Terrorism: Rational Expectations and the Optimality of Rules versus Discretion

Abstract: The application of rational expectations theory to policies of retaliation against terrorism suggests that only unexpected retaliations will be effective in causing terrorist attacks to deviate from their natural rate and that there is a time inconsistency problem in responding to terrorism. Since the optimal response rate to terrorism would never be believable to the terrorists, the first best policy may be for the government retaliating against terrorism to have its response rate constrained by an externally imposed rule. A time series intervention model of terrorist attacks against Israel supports the natural rate hypothesis and, therefore, also the desirability of a retaliatory rule over policy discretion. Israeli retaliation for the 1972 Munich massacre was the first Israeli retaliation of unexpectedly large magnitude, and it produced a temporary deviation of terrorist attacks from the natural rate. Retaliation has no long-term deterrent or escalation effect.

A Unified Method of Evaluating Electoral Systems and Redistricting Plans

Abstract: We derive a unified statistical method with which one can produce substantially improved definitions and estimates of almost any feature of two-party electoral systems that can be defined based on district vote shares. Our single method enables one to calculate more efficient estimates, with more trustworthy assessments of their uncertainty, than each of the separate multifarious existing measures of partisan bias, electoral responsiveness, seats-votes curves, expected or predicted vote in each district in a legislature, the probability that a given party will win the seat in each district, the proportion of incumbents or others who will lose their seats, the proportion of women or minority candidates to be elected, the incumbency advantage and other causal effects, the likely effects on the electoral system and district votes of proposed electoral reforms such as term limitations, campaign spending limits, and drawing majority-minority districts, and numerous others. To illustrate, we estimate the partisan bias and electoral responsiveness of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1900 and evaluate the fairness of competing redistricting plans for the 1992 Ohio state legislature.

The heavenly chorus: interest group voices on TV news

Abstract: The work of E. E. Schattschneider (1960) and others suggests that there may be systematic biases or unrepresentativeness in the voices that interest groups contribute to public deliberation about policy. Evidence from hundreds of TV news stories concerning 80 diverse policy issues from the 1969-82 period indicates that corporations and business groups predominated (especially on economic issues), with 36.5% of all interest group mentions, contrasted with only 13.2% for labor. Professional and agricultural interests were rarely heard from. Citizen action groups had 32% of all interest group stories, but these often concerned unpopular protest activity. Such imbalances, apparently resulting from differential command of money and other resources, seem to violate norms of equal access, representativeness, balance, and diversity in the marketplace of ideas.

Party Contacting and Political Participation, 1952-90

Abstract: Although the role of political parties in structuring vote choice has become considerably weaker in the last 30 years, we find that parties continue to be active organizations and contact one-fifth to one-quarter of the electorate, an activity that has important consequences. Specifically, when contacted by the parties, individuals have a greater propensity to vote and to engage in other political activities. We also find that each of the two major parties has the capability of mobilizing the electorate even when it is not the incumbent party. Even when placed alongside a plethora of control variables, these findings hold up. We conclude that citizen contacting is a method by which party organizations effectively reduce the transaction costs associated with political participation and that it is an important and largely neglected element in most analyses of political behavior.

Checking Out: The Effects of Bank Overdrafts on the 1992 House Elections

Abstract: The revelation that hundreds of House members had regularly overdrawn their checking accounts with the House bank without penalty injected a new and unanticipated issue into the 1992 elections. The consequences were profound. The scandal was a major reason for the unusually high turnover of House seats in 1992. Bank overdrafts contributed significantly to exit by all routes: retirement, defeat in the primary election, and defeat in the general election. Overdrafts did not automatically spell disaster for incumbents, however; a record of bad checks was far more damaging when exploited by an experienced, wellfinanced challenger.

Policy and Pork: The Use of Pork Barrel Projects to Build Policy Coalitions in the House of Representatives

Abstract: The literature on distributive politics in legislatures concentrates on the formation of logrolling coalitions to pass the district projects of the coalitions' members at the expense of the general public. This article argues that district projects are also used for another purpose: to help committee leaders to construct supporting coalitions for legislative packages that satisfy the leaders' own goals, including general benefit legislation. This study explicates such a strategy and tests its efficacy by estimating the impact on House members' roll call votes of the inclusion of highway "demonstration" projects in the 1987 highway and urban mass transit reauthorization by the leadership of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. The analysis shows that distributive benefits conferred by the leaders did indeed influence members' support for the leaders' legislative goals on that bill.

A Fat Lady in a Corset: Altruism and Social Theory

Abstract: This manuscript reviews the literature on altruism as it has been discussed traditionally in economics and rational choice theory, evolutionary biology, and psychology. All of these fields assume self-interest is the norm for human behavior; all, therefore, experience great difficulty explaining action that risks sacrificing one's own welfare in order to benefit another. The literature on altruism is reviewed here not just to understand and explain the phenomenon itself, but also to use our understanding of altruism as an analytical tool that can yield insight on the validity, universality, and limitations of the intellectual theories about human behavior that organize so much of our daily lives and public policies.

President-centered and Presidency-centered Explanations of Presidential Public Activity

Abstract: This article assesses the president's public activities. It tests hypotheses derived from an explanation that suggests that presidential choice depends upon the nature of presidents-a "president-centered" explanation. It also tests hypotheses derived from the opposing account, that is, that presidential behavior reflects the president's institutional responsibilities and powers-a "presidency-centered" explanation. The latter includes the president's clerkship of official responsibilities, bargaining conditions, and the tenure of presidents. Technological innovations also affect presidential activity. The empirical evaluation of these explanations includes tests for three kinds of president-centered explanations, emphasizing individual presidents, Barber's presidential styles, and the recent interest in Washington outsiders. The empirical evidence suggests an important role for the presidency-centered explanation and the control for technology. The president-centered models, however, provide additional insight into presidential activities.

Does Politics Matter? A Time-Series Analysis of Minority Employment Patterns

Abstract: Public sector jobs represent a major source of political and economic progress for racial minorities. However, wide variation exists across United States cities with respect to how effectively minorities have been able to lay claim to an equitable share of these jobs. Past research suggests that the election of a minority mayor plays a major role in successful employment strategies. Previous studies, however, have been limited by reliance on cross-sectional research designs. Employing a pooled time series design in a large number of cities, we find that black mayors have very little impact on black job success. We also find that Hispanic mayors have no effect on Hispanic job success. Instead, favorable minority employment outcomes are determined by an interaction among minority representatives on city councils and minority administrators in key decision-making positions. This political-bureaucratic explanation suggests that a major reassessment of the determinants of minority employment progress is in order.

The Politics of Tax Increases in the States

Abstract: This paper updates a recent study of the factors prompting states to adopt new tax instruments by testing the explanation supported in the original work over a longer time period and broadening the pooled cross-sectional time series analysis to include increases in the rates of existing tax instruments. Our results are consistent with the original study's support for a "political opportunity" explanation that suggests that politicians are most likely to adopt tax increases when the electoral risks of doing so are minimized.

Let the Good Times Roll: The Economic Expectations of U.S. Voters

Abstract: Increasingly the concept of expectation is utilized to explain political choices, with voters being depicted as prospective rather than retrospective in their orientations. This paper tests competing theories of economic expectations (forecasts) with data from consumer surveys (1960-91). Forecasts of inflation confirm the hypothesis of adaptive expectations, but forecasts of general economic conditions do not; nor do those forecasts conform to rational expectations. Instead, voter forecasts of economic conditions are prone to a significant asymmetry. While good economic times tend to foster optimism in an adaptive fashion, bad times do not similarly feed pessimism. Instead, they trigger a reverse forecast. We explore this remarkable behavior in the light of "psychological economics."

Conflict in Context: Arms Transfers and Third World Rivalries during the Cold War

Abstract: I investigate the impact of superpower arms transfers on two enduring Third World rivalries. A time-series analysis suggests that Soviet and U.S. supplies to interstate rivals in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf are not parallel in their effects. Soviet transfers to Egypt and Syria exacerbated conflict in the Middle East, while U.S. transfers to Israel show no such propensity. There is also some evidence that U.S. arms supplies to Iran under Shah Pahlevi may have had a dampening effect on the Iran-Iraq rivalry. An action-reaction dynamic is apparent in superpower transfers to both the Middle East and Persian Gulf, although the reactive tendency was more pronounced in the U.S. policy. These results lend credence to a conceptual framework that highlights the congruent security orientations of arms suppliers and recipients.

Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances

Abstract: Morrow (1991) claims that alliances can shift because of changes in the policy preferences of the regimes that control states. This is counter to the central theoretical position of neorealist theory that sees alliances as the outgrowth of particular distributions of power in an anarchic international system. Drawing on regime changes in Europe between 1816 and 1965, we evaluate the relative merits of these contradictory claims. Our data support the conclusion that regime changes that were (1) externally imposed, (2) the result of internal revolution, or (3) nonviolent, but occurred in the context of an internal political crisis, all had significant effects on a state's restructuring of its alliances, even when other variables, such as changes in the distribution of power and the state's power status, are held constant.

Issues, Values, and Critical Moments: Did "Magic" Johnson Transform Public Opinion on AIDS?

Abstract: By what process do changes occur in the way issues are perceived and evaluated by ordinary citizens? A number of scholarly accounts share this perspective: intense, valueladen communications, or "critical moments," are of key importance in supplying people with symbolic frames for issues and, thus, in defining or redefining the value bases of issue conflict. Applying this perspective to the case of Earvin ("Magic") Johnson's announcement that he had contracted the AIDS-causing virus-a critical moment in AIDS opinions fortuitously captured by interrupted time-series data-this analysis finds that heterosexual moral values define a new basis of polarization on AIDS-related policies among postannouncement respondents. Furthermore, an analysis of survey data obtained 10 months after "Magic" Johnson's disclosure reveals both persistence of the new value basis and erosion in the importance of moral evaluations of homosexuality, the "old" or established value that citizens have referenced in forming opinions about AIDS.