Showing papers in "The Journal of Politics in 2001"

On the Limits of Framing Effects: Who Can Frame?

Abstract: Public opinion often depends on which frames elites choose to use. For example, citizens' opinions about a Ku Klux Klan rally may depend on whether elites frame it as a free speech issue or a public safety issue. An important concern is that elites face few constraints to using frames to influence and manipulate citizens' opinions. Indeed, virtually no work has investigated the limits of framing effects. In this article, I explore these limits by focusing on one particular constraint-the credibility of the frame's source. I present two laboratory experiments that suggest that elites face a clear and systematic constraint to using frames to influence and manipulate public opinion.

Interest Niches and Policy Bandwagons: Patterns of Interest Group Involvement in National Politics

Abstract: Using data from more than 19,000 reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, we analyze the distribution of lobbying on a random sample of 137 issues and find a tremendous skewness. The median issue involved only 15 interest groups, whereas 8 of the issues involved more than 300 interest groups. The top 5% of the issues accounted for more than 45% of the lobbying, whereas the bottom 50% of the issues accounted for less than 3% of the total. This distribution makes generalizations about interest group conflict difficult and helps explain why many scholars have disagreed about the abilities of lobbyists to get what they want. We also confirm and expand upon previous findings regarding the tremendous predominance of business firms in the Washington lobbying population.

Political Parties and the Adoption of Candidate Gender Quotas: A Cross-National Analysis

Abstract: Candidate gender quotas have been an important mechanism in increasing women's numerical representation in the national legislature, yet little empirical research has examined the adoption of quotas cross-nationally. The adoption of quotas is examined systematically across 71 parties in 11 advanced industrial countries from 1975 to 1995 using Event History Analysis, which allows us to explain the dynamic process of the adoption of quotas. The influences that emerge as the most significant are the presence of women within the highest ranks of the party, the adoption of quotas by another party in the system, and the degree of leftist values held by a party.

National Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections

Abstract: National economic conditions regularly influence outcomes in U.S. presidential elections. However, beyond this simple finding, much remains unclear. How large are national economic effects? Which macroeconomic indicators? Subjective or objective measures? Retrospective or prospective? What is the role of institutions? In our analysis of the American National Election Studies, 1956-1996, we employ a National Business Index (NBI), an aggregate measure that amalgamates individual voter perceptions of the collective economy. It outperforms other national economic measures and reveals that effects have been underestimated. The assumption of strong retrospective economic voting is tested under different institutional hypotheses. Contrary to expectations, it is not found to be influenced by divided government, but it is heavily influenced by incumbency, meaning in practice whether a popularly elected president is running. Moreover, this incumbency variable highly conditions the time horizon of national economic ...

Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames

Abstract: Political events and policy discussion set parameters for debate and help to determine how an issue comes to be defined. Though existing research has examined the effects of alternative representations of political issues on public opinion, less attention has been given to highly salient issues, such as gun policy, and the potential effect of framing on causal attributions of blame for tragic events. This study expands the framing research to include opinion on policies concerning guns as well as the attributions of blame following the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado. We test several hypotheses using data from two field polls-one examining support for concealed handgun laws and the other examining blame attribution following the shootings at Columbine High School. We find that alternative gun frames influence opinion about concealed handgun laws as well as attributions of blame for Columbine. However, the effect is conditional, hinging on the nature of respondents' predisposition and existing knowl...

The Electoral Connection in European Union Politics

Abstract: Why does European integration proceed? This article tests among three theories of representation. The "permissive consensus" theory argues that political elites have been able to pursue their own p...

Interdependence, Government Constraints, and Economic Voting

Abstract: This article examines the role of global economic interdependence in constraining citizens' responses to domestic economic performance. While recent work in economic voting has made strides in accounting for the contextual mediators of support, analyses have not gone beyond domestic political structures. At the same time, students of globalization highlight the constraints governments face from the world economy but do not extend their analyses to examine the role of mass political behavior. This article brings these two research agendas together. Using cross-sectional individual-level data, it is found that accounting for exposure to the world economy dampens the strength of domestic economic bases of popular support. Additional analyses show that the susceptibility of different groups in society to the global economy's mediating influences is not uniform but contingent on occupational differences.

Incumbents and Challengers on a Level Playing Field: Assessing the Impact of Campaign Finance in Brazil

Abstract: This article assesses the impact of campaign spending on incumbent and challenger vote shares in elections to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. I argue that incumbents and challengers gain equally from campaign spending. This contrasts with the prominent argument about U.S. House elections that incumbents gain little from spending while challengers gain a great deal. In the U.S., incumbents gain little because being in office generates significant name recognition and additional spending suffers quickly from diminishing returns. In contrast, challengers gain a lot because they start the campaign from scratch. In Brazil, because incumbency provides fewer benefits than in the U.S., both incumbents and challengers must spend money to increase their name recognition and both benefit from spending. My findings imply that campaign spending limits in Brazil would encourage rather than restrict competition, and they point to the importance of assessing the relative advantages of incumbency when assessing the imp...

Variability in State Policy Priorities: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract: This article examines variability in policy priorities across the American states; that is, the ways that state governments allocate resources to meet societal needs. Specifically, our analysis uses 1992 data on state program expenditures to produce a comprehensive geometric representation- or model-of state policy priorities for that year. This model is parsimonious, powerful, and substantively meaningful. The structure of state policy priorities is manifested as a sharp contrast between programs that deliver particularized benefits and those that supply collective goods. Furthermore, we show that policy priorities are largely determined by public opinion and interest group activity within the respective states. Therefore, our analysis not only operationalizes successfully a critical aspect of the policy process; it also makes a useful contribution to the study of state politics.

Economic Performance, Institutional Intermediation, and Democratic Survival

Abstract: The breakdown of democracies has long been associated with poor economic performance. This study attempts to determine whether different configurations of democratic institutions can mediate the effects of poor economic performance. Using an original data set that includes all democracies from the period 1919 to 1995, we use continuous-time duration analysis to test hypotheses derived from the literature on democratization. Specifically, we test the interaction of party system and the configuration of legislative and executive power (parliamentarism and presidentialism) with economic performance to explain the likelihood of breakdown. Results suggest that majoritarian variants of democracy are more resistant to economic contraction than pluralist ones. Under conditions of economic growth, pluralist democracies outperform majoritarian ones.

Divided Government, Interest Representation, and Policy Differences: Competing Explanations of Gridlock in the Fifty States

Abstract: Recent research has focused on divided government and interest representation as sources of legislative gridlock. We hypothesize that these two factors will differentially affect the legislative process in eight different policy areas even if they do not affect the overall output of legislation. Using data from the 50 states, we found that when a governor faced a legislature controlled by the opposition party, divided government did make passage of conflictual policy more difficult, When the control of the legislature itself was split, divided government had a positive (or insignificant) effect in less conflictual policy areas. Previous scholars have failed to detect the negative effects of divided government because the effects differed across policy areas. Interest group proliferation also decreased the odds of bill passage in some policy areas but increased the odds in other arenas. It is important to examine interest groups and divided government in tandem to understand their relative impacts upon the...

Gender Gap or Gender Gaps? New Perspectives on Support for Government Action and Policies

Abstract: This paper clarifies the theoretical bases for expecting women to be more supportive of government programs than are men. We identify several factors not developed in past literature: (1) differences in emotional responses to social problems, (2) gendered differences in the awareness of those problems among one's own kin, (3) differences in the perceived fairness of existing social institutions, (4) differences in the perceived efficacy of government programs, and (5) variations in the preferred form that those programs should take. Testing hypotheses using data from a 1995 survey of public opinion covering five policy domains, we find that the gender gap in these domains is substantial, comparable to that associated with race and partisanship. These differences are attributable in part to factors identified previously in the literature-such as gendered differences in perceived opportunity-but are also affected by differences between men and women in the perceived efficacy of government programs (e.g., th...

Why Do Some Firms Give? Why Do Some Give a Lot?: High-Tech PACs, 1977-1996

Abstract: This article employs Heckman selection models to explore the determinants of corporate PAC formation and PAC size and how these determinants have changed over time While the findings suggest that high-tech firms use PACs to seek rents from government, internal organizational politics influence their behavior as well I also find that the effect of some independent variables, including firm size, susceptibility to regulation, and R&D spending, changed significantly over the two-decade span encompassed in the data, peaking in influence in the mid-1980s The quantitative analysis is supplemented by interview data that point to the existence of a political "arms control" process among some market competitors

You Must Remember This: A Test of the On-Line Model of Voting

Abstract: Milton Lodge and his colleagues at Stony Brook have argued that voters process campaign information on-line, summarizing their affect toward candidates as campaign information is encountered. Consequently, recall of campaign information and vote choice are believed by Lodge to be a weak predictor of actual vote decision, which is determined almost solely by the on-line tally. The claims made by the on-line model have not been tested in a dynamic election context, however, in which two or more candidates compete for the vote. This study uses a new experimental methodology that more accurately depicts the realities of a campaign environment to assess the relative importance of memory and the on-line tally in predicting both the direction and accuracy of the vote choice. Findings do not support the pure Stony Brook on-line model, as they show that in all cases voter memory plays an important role in decision making and suggest that a mixed decision-making model is more appropriate.

Better the Devil You Know Than the Saint You Don't? Risk Propensity and Vote Choice in Mexico

Abstract: This paper argues that personal attitudes toward risk influence vote choice in Mexico. Great uncertainty over the political stances and capabilities of the opposition parties makes risk propensity a key determinant of vote choice. Not all voters who are disenchanted with the status quo take a chance on the less known opposition; risk acceptant voters gamble on these parties, whereas risk averse individuals stick with the "devil they know." Using data from a 1997 national survey and multinomial probit analysis, we show that attitudes toward risk influence voting behavior in Mexico in two ways. First, risk has a direct impact on vote choice. Risk acceptant individuals are more likely, in general, to support the opposition. Second, risk affects vote choice indirectly by conditioning the importance of economic assessments. Risk acceptant individuals are willing to punish negative economic performance, whereas similar, but risk averse, individuals are not.

Inner-City Contexts, Church Attendance, and African-American Political Participation

Abstract: Over the years, an undeniable and convincing body of evidence has emphasized the importance of African-American churches as conduits for political skills, resources, and mobilization. In this study, we examine the growing incidence of neighborhood poverty; never-married, parent house-holds; and perceived social isolation to ascertain the extent to which they undermine church attendance and the associated benefits of increased political engagement, organizational membership, and voting. The major finding of this study is that the inner-city contexts in which African-Americans reside matter for overall political behavior. However, these influences occur much more through the perception of social isolation and family structure than through neighborhood poverty. Moreover, while the results indicate that to an extent inner-city contexts do matter, they also reaffirm the continuing importance and durability of the African-American church as a viable and politically relevant institution in beleaguered, inner-cit...

Political Context, Issue Salience, and Selective Attentiveness: Constituent Knowledge of the Clarence Thomas Confirmation Vote

Abstract: According to the issue salience hypothesis, citizens tend to acquire information on subjects they perceive as important. However, past efforts to demonstrate this have been mixed. I argue that this is because scholars often fail to recognize the importance of overlapping group memberships. I maintain that different group memberships-a traditional proxy for issue salience-can cancel out effects if they are in conflict. Some research has also shown that cues in the political environment increase levels of political information. Extending this line of research, I hypothesize that the interaction of salience with environmental cues influences both information and participation levels. I find that an examination of the confirmation vote for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas largely confirms these hypotheses.

Effects of Negative Campaigning on Turnout in U.S. Senate Elections, 1988–1998

Abstract: This paper addresses a very important question for media researchers, political campaigners, and democratic theorists alike: Does negative campaigning demobilize the electorate? Using both aggregate- and individual-level turnout data and evidence on the nature or "tone" of virtually every U.S. Senate campaign between 1988 and 1998, we find that campaign negativism has a curvilinear effect on turnout, with most observed levels of negativism actually stimulating turnout. Only at extremely high levels does negativism in political campaigns generally suppress turnout. We find no consistent evidence that person-based criticisms of the opponent have any different effect than policy-based criticisms. However, we do find support for the hypothesis that partisans tend to be stimulated by campaign negativism while independents are more likely to be discouraged by such campaigns.

Divided Government and Economic Voting

Abstract: With one party in charge of the presidency and the other one in charge of Congress, how are American voters supposed to allocate credit and blame for the government's economic performance? The following solutions are proposed and tested: Hung Jury, where voters refuse to render an economic judgment on either president or Congress; Split Verdict, where voters reach separate judgments depending on whichever party is in control of a given branch; President Liable, where the electorate solves the responsibility problem by singling out the President and absolving Congress; and Congress Liable, with the roles of president and Congress reversed. The results show that the President Liable model wins easily under varying configurations of divided government as well as economic conditions. Divided government poses no noticeable obstacle for retrospective voting on the economy.

Problems with a Methodology Used to Evaluate the Voter Initiative

Abstract: This note identifies problems with a methodology that has been used to test whether policy is more or less responsive to public opinion in states with voter initiatives. The methodology is to regress a policy variable on a measure of constituent preferences, and compare the coefficients for states with and without voter initiatives. The states with the largest coefficients are said to be more responsive to public opinion. Such an inference is shown to be invalid.

Does Peace Nature Democracy

Abstract: Liberal international relations theory proposes that peace fosters democracy. This research note tests this and a related hypothesis, that defeat in war makes an authoritarian state's transition to democracy more likely. It uses Weibull event history models to analyze both the transition to and survival of democracy for states from 1960 to 1992, using the MID, COW, and Pearson/Baumann intervention data sets to measure international conflict. Important control variables such as economic prosperity are also included. It finds that lower levels of participation in international conflict do not facilitate democratic transition or survival, with the limited exception that participation in an international war blocks democratic transition. Also, in most models examined defeat in war does not make democratic transition more likely. The implications for liberalism are mixed: peace in general does not cause democracy, but spreading democracy is likely to spread peace.

Explaining the Overruling of U.S. Supreme Court Precedent

Abstract: The decision to overrule U.S. Supreme Court precedent, we argue, results from the justices' pursuit of their policy preferences within intra- and extra-Court constraints. Based on a duration analysis of cases decided from the 1946 through 1995 terms, we show that ideological incongruence between a precedent and a subsequent Court increases the chance of it being overruled. Two legal norms also exert substantive effects as the Court is less likely to overrule statutory precedents and more likely to overrule precedents that previously have been interpreted negatively by the Court. While certain precedent characteristics also influence this decision, the political environment exerts no such effect. Consequently, one of the principal implications of this research is that legal norms influence Supreme Court decision making.

The Path(s) to Rivalry: Behavioral and Structural Explanations of Rivalry Development

Abstract: Despite the importance of enduring rivalries, to date little attention has been placed on understanding how they develop. This article presents one of the first attempts to understand rivalry development. Two broad approaches to protracted rivalry development, behavioral and structural, are contrasted. The behavioral approach focuses on the actions of the potential rivals during their early confrontations, and argues that initial behavior will establish the direction of future interactions. The structural approach proposes that rivalries are caused by environmental factors largely out of the immediate control of the participants. When tested, we find that the development of proto and enduring rivalries can be explained best by a combination of both approaches. We also find that longer term rivalries do not appear to have one single cause. They may instead be produced by the confluence of many small factors.

Age, Race, Self‐Interest, and Financing Public Schools Through Referenda

Abstract: Using a sample of 628 white, black, and Hispanic voters in a large urban school district, we test a series of hypotheses about voting in a school bond election. We find that there is a core of similar results across racial/ethnic groups. All three groups show strong, directly measured, self-interest effects. We also find some distinct group differences. Symbolic values played a limited role for white voters, but a stronger role for minorities. In addition, for white voters we find a substantial drop in support for the bond across age cohorts, but no such drop among black and Hispanic voters.

Voluntary Retirements from State Supreme Courts: Assessing Democratic Pressures to Relinquish the Bench

Abstract: This article assesses whether electoral vulnerability promotes strategic retirements in state supreme courts and, more generally, whether elections are more effective in promoting democratic control of the bench than believed. Results indicate that voluntary retirements are influenced by electoral considerations, but only when justices are retained in partisan or retention elections. With nonpartisan elections, these effects are absent. Through the lens of judicial reform, these findings suggest that some arguments for abandoning partisan elections and adopting the Missouri Plan may lack merit and that the premises underlying institutional design should be reconsidered. Moreover, studies of judicial choice must be attentive both to strategy and context.

Rebuilding the Foundations of Offense-Defense Theory

Abstract: The relative ease of attack and defense-the offense-defense balance-is a widely used planatory concept in international politics, playing an important role in literatures ranging from war causation and alliance formation to the determinants of system structure, the importance of relative gains from cooperation, or the causes of World War I. Yet the concept of the balance itself remains radically underdeveloped theoretically, clouding the predictions of the numerous theories that rest upon it and undermining rigorous empirical work on the many hypotheses these theories imply. I address this problem by presenting and testing a systematic theory of the balance that emphasizes military strategic and tactical choices as its key determinants, by contrast with orthodox offense-defense theory's focus on technology. This new theory outperforms the orthodox view and has broad implications for international relations theory.

All Votes Are Not Created Equal: Campaign Contributions and Critical Votes

Abstract: Conclusions from past research on campaign contributions and legislative voting behavior have been ambiguous. Some find a strong relationship between group donations and votes while others find no relationship at all. In attempts to explain these conflicting results, many address the influence of context on this relationship. This article extends those efforts by studying the "vote context." I argue that contributions are more likely to influence a legislator's vote when that vote means the difference between a contributing group's success or defeat on a bill. By studying votes on 102 bills in the California Senate Governmental Organization Committee, I find that contributions have a stronger effect on those votes that are crucial to the outcome of legislation. Therefore, while contributions may influence only a small number of total votes, they have a significant impact on legislative outcomes.

Interstate Migration and Electoral Politics

Abstract: Migration is often discussed as one of several factors underlying political change. But the precise kind of political change we should expect in areas of high in-migration is often not specified. I...

Incumbent Popularity and Vote Choice in Gubernatorial Elections

Abstract: Studies of gubernatorial elections have found vote choice to be a function of party identification, assessments of economic conditions, and the president's job performance but have not tested for a referendum effect concerning the incumbent governor. This analysis uses state polling data to demonstrate that voters with favorable images of the incumbent governor have a higher probability of voting for the candidate of the incumbent's party. The effect is greater when the incumbent seeks reelection, but it is present in open contests as well.

Election systems and voter turnout: Experiments in the United States

Abstract: Theory suggests that majoritarian/plurality elections depress voter participation and that proportional election systems encourage greater voter mobilization and turnout. We examine the effect that cumulative voting (CV) has on turnout in local elections in the U.S. Variation in social/cultural context is largely held constant by our design while election system varies, allowing us to identify the unique effect CV has on turnout. We test if turnout is higher when CV is used in the same context as plurality rules. Consistent with expectations about institutional effects, turnout is about 5 percentage points higher under CV than in similar plurality elections.