Showing papers in "The Journal of Politics in 2002"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used national sample survey data from four Latin American countries to test the effect of corruption experiences on belief in the legitimacy of the political system and found that public support for corrupt regimes is eroding.
Abstract: Economists have long warned about the pernicious impacts of corruption, arguing that it increases transaction costs, reduces investment incentives, and ultimately results in reduced economic growth. Political scientists, on the other hand, ever the realists, have had a much more ambivalent view of the problem. Indeed, much classic literature focusing on the Third World saw corruption as functional for political development, enabling citizens to overcome intransigent, inefficient bureaucracies while increasing loyalty to the political system. More recent research, however, points in the opposite direction toward an erosion of public support for corrupt regimes. A series of serious methodological problems has prevented the testing of these contradictory assertions about the impact of corruption. This article uses national sample survey data, with a total N of over 9,000, from four Latin American countries to test the effect of corruption experiences on belief in the legitimacy of the political system. It fi...
792 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make use of a unique data set collected using a dynamic information board experiment to test important effects of motivated reasoning and find that motivated reasoners may actually increase their support of a positively evaluated candidate upon learning new negatively evaluated information.
Abstract: Researchers attempting to understand how citizens process political information have advanced motivated reasoning to explain the joint role of affect and cognition. The prominence of affect suggests that all social information processing is affectively charged and prone to biases. This article makes use of a unique data set collected using a dynamic information board experiment to test important effects of motivated reasoning. In particular, affective biases should cause citizens to take longer processing information incongruent with their existing affect and such biases should also direct search for new information about candidates. Somewhat perversely, motivated reasoners may actually increase their support of a positively evaluated candidate upon learning new negatively evaluated information. Findings are reported that support all of these expectations. Additional analysis shows that these affective biases may easily lead to lower quality decision making, leading to a direct challenge to the notion of ...
705 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that people are hostile toward the European project in great part because of their perceptions of threats posed by other cultures, and that perceived cultural threat is an important factor that has been mistakenly ignored in explanations of hostility towards the European Union.
Abstract: This research note argues that much of the literature on support for European integration misses the heart of the nature of opposition to this process by ignoring the notion of perceived threat. Essentially, people are hostile toward the European project in great part because of their perceptions of threats posed by other cultures. I analyze this hypothesis by replicating a piece of research that previously appeared in this journal, adding measures of perceived threat to that model. The results support the main contention, which is that perceived cultural threat is an important factor that has been mistakenly ignored in explanations of hostility toward the European Union.
618 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that negative campaign charges are just as likely to engage potential voters, leading to a stimulation effect when it comes to voter turnout when compared to the demobilization hypothesis, and that exposure to negative campaign ads actually stimulates voter turnout.
Abstract: Recent controversy over campaign advertising has focused on the effects of negative ads on voters. Proponents of the demobilization hypothesis have argued that negative ads turn off voters and shrink the size of the electorate. We argue that negative campaign charges are just as likely to engage potential voters, leading to a stimulation effect when it comes to turnout. Drawing on a new source of ad-tracking data from the 1996 presidential election, combined with the 1996 National Election Study, we generate estimates of the probability that voters were exposed to positive and negative political advertising. With this new, more precise approach, we find unambiguous evidence that exposure to negative campaign ads actually stimulates voter turnout.
265 citations
TL;DR: This article found that women's movements and women's policy agencies may provide more effective avenues of expression for women's perspective than the presence of women in the legislatures, and that studies of representation for marginalized groups should consider institutional changes and increased political mobilization as potential sources of improved political representation.
Abstract: The idea that individual members of marginalized groups provide substantive representation for the wider group rests on a problematic understanding of the relationship between individual experience and group perspective. I propose understanding group perspectives as collective products. In this view, institutional structures and social movements, not just bodies, can be more or less representative of groups. Comparing the impact of various modes of women's representation on policies to address violence against women in 36 democratic countries in 1994, I find that women's movements and women's policy agencies may provide more effective avenues of expression for women's perspective than the presence of women in the legislatures. Thus, studies of representation for marginalized groups should consider institutional changes and increased political mobilization as potential sources of improved political representation.
256 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of political parties in shaping women's representation across the U.S. states was analyzed using data from 1971 to 1999 and several hypotheses about how party affects women's recruitment to the lower houses of state legislatures.
Abstract: This article analyzes the role of political parties in shaping women's representation across the U.S. states. Using data from 1971 to 1999, I analyze several hypotheses about how party affects women's recruitment to the lower houses of state legislatures. I argue that the incentive structure facing potential women candidates is somewhat different for Democratic and Republican women. The social eligibility pool, legislative professionalism, and partisan composition of the legislature affect women's representation differently by party. Rather than assuming a single path for women to elective office, this research implies that it is necessary to disaggregate women by party in order to understand the pattern of where women run for and hold state legislative office.
239 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that public salience and issue complexity determine the extent to which a president can capitalize on approval, and proceed to test this hypothesis on U.S. House of Representatives roll call votes between 1989 and 2000.
Abstract: While a large body of work exists on presidents' public approval, no study identifies the conditions under which approval generates policy influence. This gap is particularly significant since empirical research has produced inconsistent findings on whether popularity affects a president's legislative success. In the following, we argue that public salience and issue complexity determine the extent to which a president can capitalize on approval, and we proceed to test this hypothesis on U.S. House of Representatives roll-call votes between 1989 and 2000. The empirical analysis provides strong support for our hypothesis, which holds across a variety of econometric specifications and estimates of approval.
228 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a class of duration models for analyzing repeated events is presented, and applied to the analysis of international conflict data, where the authors illustrate their methods through an application to widely used data on international conflict.
Abstract: An important feature of most political events is their repeatability: nearly all political events reoccur, and theories of learning, path dependence, and institutional change all suggest that later events will differ from earlier ones. Yet, most models for event history analysis fail to account for repeated events, a fact that can yield misleading results in practice. We present a class of duration models for analyzing repeated events, discuss their properties and implementation, and offer recommendations for their use by applied researchers. We illustrate these methods through an application to widely used data on international conflict.
216 citations
TL;DR: This article test the hypothesis that increasing dissimilarity of sociodemographic characteristics from a political figure (e.g., party leader) decreases a voter's expected utility from the election of that person.
Abstract: Voters' decision criterion of last resort is their similarity to candidates or party leaders. Most normative theories would denigrate this form of reasoning. But the recent argument that voters can make up for information shortfalls by employing heuristics seems to require that the most poorly informed respond to these characteristics if they are to make anything other than a random decision. In this article I test the hypothesis that increasing dissimilarity of sociodemographic characteristics from a political figure (e.g., party leader) decreases a voter's expected utility from the election of that person. Secondarily, I ask whether decreases in a voter's store of policy information will necessitate greater reliance-a tendency to "fall back"-on this similarity/dissimilarity criterion. I draw on survey data from two Canadian federal elections with adequate variation in party leader characteristics. A model of vote choice is estimated by conditional logit. All voters are found to respond negatively to inc...
197 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that politicians do not trade pork for votes, they trade pork-barrel success, and that politicians' access to money, not pork, directly affects their electoral prospects.
Abstract: Although observers of Brazilian politics commonly hold that voters reward incumbents for "bringing home the bacon," I provide reasons to question the direct link between pork and electoral success as well as statistical evidence demonstrating the lack of such a link. This generates a puzzle: if pork barreling is ineffective, why do Brazilian deputies spend so much time seeking pork? The answer is that deputies do not trade pork for votes, they trade pork for money: pork-barrel success helps incumbents raise funds from private sector interests that profit from government contracts. In turn, politicians' access to money, not pork, directly affects their electoral prospects. This article provides a new understanding of the electoral connection in Brazil by showing that existing analyses either have overestimated pork's impact or are underdetermined because they have not included measures of campaign finance. The findings should also encourage comparativists interested in pork-barrel politics, clientelism, th...
190 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors translate general arguments about the role of campaigns into a set of formal, statistical expectations and examine poll results for the 15 U.S. presidential elections between 1944 and 2000.
Abstract: Little is known about the evolution of electoral sentiment over the campaign cycle. How does the outcome come into focus as the election cycle evolves? Do voters' preferences evolve in a patterned and understandable way? What role does the election campaign play? In this article, we address these issues. We translate general arguments about the role of campaigns into a set of formal, statistical expectations. Then, we outline an empirical analysis and examine poll results for the 15 U.S. presidential elections between 1944 and 2000. Our analysis focuses specifically on two questions. First, to what extent does the observable variation in aggregate poll results represent real movement in electoral preferences (if the election were held the day of the poll) as opposed to mere survey error? Second, to the extent polls register true movement of preferences owing to the shocks of campaign events, do the effects last or do they decay? Answers to these questions tell us whether and the extent to which campaign e...
TL;DR: This paper found that the majority of Latino, Asian American, and African American voters were on the winning side of the vote in most of the propositions in California since 1978, and that these targeted propositions represent less than 5% of all ballot propositions.
Abstract: Critics argue that direct legislation (initiatives and referendums) allows an electoral majority to undermine the interests and rights of racial and ethnic minorities. We assess this claim by examining outcomes of direct democracy in California since 1978. Our analysis indicates that critics have overstated the detrimental effects of direct democracy. Confirming earlier critiques, we find that racial and ethnic minorities-and in particular Latinos-lose regularly on a small number of racially targeted propositions. However, these racially targeted propositions represent less than 5% of all ballot propositions. When we consider outcomes across all propositions, we find that the majority of Latino, Asian American, and African American voters were on the winning side of the vote. This remains true if we confine our analysis to propositions on which racial and ethnic minorities vote cohesively or to propositions on issues that racial and ethnic minorities say they care most about.
TL;DR: In this paper, three major types of democratic institutional characteristics have been hypothesized to increase the constraints on conflict initiation: public electoral participation, intra-legislative factors, and a stronger legislature in relation to the executive.
Abstract: How do domestic political institutions affect the propensity to initiate international conflict? We improve theoretical understanding of and empirical knowledge on this question. We describe three major types of democratic institutional characteristics that have been hypothesized to increase the constraints on conflict initiation: public electoral participation, intra-legislative factors, and a stronger legislature in relation to the executive. Using a Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) model to analyze 37 democracies in the period 1919-1992, we find that higher political participation levels decrease the likelihood of initiating an international dispute and that neither the number of parties nor the nature of the ruling coalition affects the likelihood of initiating a dispute. The evidence is mixed on whether variation in executive-legislative constraints makes initiation more likely. These findings highlight the significance of public consent for the formation of democratic foreign policy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined agency mortality between 1946 and 1997 and argued that agencies face significant risks of termination, particularly due to political turnover, when an agency's opponents gain power, the hazards of agency mortality increase.
Abstract: This article examines agency mortality between 1946 and 1997 and argues that, contrary to popular belief, agencies are not immortal. Rather, agencies face significant risks of termination, particularly due to political turnover. When an agency's opponents gain power, the hazards of agency mortality increase. Principal among the findings of this paper are that 62% of agencies created since 1946 have been terminated and that political turnover is one of the primary causes of termination.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the effect of adult civic education programs on political participation in two developing democracies, the Dominican Republic and South Africa, and found that the effects of civic education on participation are largely conditional in nature, dependent on the frequency and nature of the civic education "treatment", and the individual's store of prior political and participatory experiences.
Abstract: This article examines the effect of adult civic education programs on political participation in two developing democracies, the Dominican Republic and South Africa. I first develop hypotheses about the effects of civic education on participation from theories of political culture and recent work on recruitment and group mobilization. Using survey data collected on participants in numerous civic education programs as well as control groups in both countries, I then show that civic education has significant and substantively meaningful effects on local-level political participation in four of the seven programs studied in South Africa and the Dominican Republic and that the results hold after controlling for potential biases related to the individual's self-selection into the programs. The effects of civic education on participation are largely conditional in nature, dependent on the frequency and nature of the civic education "treatment," and the individual's store of prior political and participatory res...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the impact of economic institutional arrangements on union membership trends in sixteen industrial democracies between 1960 and 1994 and find that the effects of economic globalization are marginal and conditional on particular economic institutions, which helps to explain divergent trends in union density among these countries.
Abstract: There have been widespread claims in recent years about the effects of economic globalization on domestic politics and, in particular, its negative impact on wage earners and trade unions. A number of recent studies have raised serious questions about the validity of claims that the globalization of trade and financial markets leads to international convergence around a neoliberal market economic model. This article considers the impact of economic institutional arrangements on union membership trends in sixteen industrial democracies between 1960 and 1994. We find that the effects of economic globalization are marginal and conditional on particular economic institutions, which helps to explain divergent trends in union density among these countries. These differences suggest that the way national economies operate may continue to diverge.
TL;DR: The authors explored the link between jury deliberation and electoral participation and found that those who reached verdicts are more likely to vote in subsequent elections than those who failed to reach a verdict or even begin deliberations.
Abstract: Deliberative democratic theory posits that civic discussion leads to increased involvement in public affairs. To test this claim, this study explored the link between jury deliberation and electoral participation. It was hypothesized that empanelled jurors who reach verdicts are more likely to vote in subsequent elections than empanelled jurors who fail to reach a verdict or even begin deliberations. Data collected in Thurston County, Washington, supported this hypothesis. Controlling for other trial features and past voting frequency, citizens who served on a criminal jury that reached a verdict were more likely to vote in subsequent elections than were those jurors who deadlocked, were dismissed during trial, or merely served as alternates.
TL;DR: In this paper, a series of questions related to the survival of disagreement among interdependent citizens during an election campaign are addressed, including whether campaign-stimulated processes of collective deliberation result in the elimination of disagreement within networks of social communication, and if not, what are the factors that sustain political heterogeneity and disagreement.
Abstract: This paper addresses a series of questions related to the survival of disagreement among interdependent citizens during an election campaign. Do campaign-stimulated processes of collective deliberation result in the elimination of disagreement within networks of social communication? If not, what are the factors that sustain political heterogeneity and disagreement? And what are the consequences of political heterogeneity within these communication networks for patterns of political influence between and among citizens? Finally, in what manner is the influence of one citizen on another conditioned by the structure of communication networks and the distribution of preferences in the remainder of these networks? We address these questions based on a study of electoral dynamics in the 1996 presidential campaign as it took place in the Indianapolis and St. Louis metropolitan areas.
TL;DR: This article found that voters who make choices on ballot measures will gain in civic abilities, but non-voters in the same states will see no increases in their ability to answer factual questions about politics.
Abstract: Citizens' political attitudes are critically shaped by government institutions. Initiatives and referenda are one such institutional arrangement that may encourage the development of dispositions and skills that make for better citizens. Building upon tenets of participatory democratic theory, I hypothesize that voters who make choices on ballot measures will gain in civic abilities, but non-voters in the same states will see no increases. Moreover, the gains for voters should occur over multiple years rather than during any single election. Using the 1992 Senate Election Study, which contains samples of approximately equal size from each state, I estimate the relationship between initiative use and political knowledge. The findings indicate that voters from states that heavily use initiatives show an increased capacity over the long term to correctly answer factual questions about politics.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present empirical results from an international survey of environmental groups and find evidence of a relatively dense network of international action by green groups, and a substantial resource transfer from green groups in the OECD nations to those in the developing world.
Abstract: A rich literature theorizes about the development of transnational networks among social movements that may signal the emergence of a new global civil society. This article presents empirical results from an international survey of environmental groups. We find evidence of a relatively dense network of international action by green groups, and a substantial resource transfer from green groups in the OECD nations to those in the developing world. At the same time, the patterns of exchange within this network raise questions about the more optimistic claims of the global civil society literature because participation in this transnational network is largely an extension of the factors that encourage domestic political action. In addition, power inequalities and value differences that exist within this international environmental network may limit transnational cooperation among environmental groups.
TL;DR: In this paper, Songer et al. examined compliance with Supreme Court overrulings of precedent-cases in which they might expect the lowest levels of compliance with the Supreme Court policy prescriptions.
Abstract: While past research has demonstrated widespread compliance in the Courts of Appeals with Supreme Court precedent (e.g., Gruhl 1980; Songer 1987; Songer, Segal, and Cameron 1994; Songer and Sheehan 1990), compliance is not automatic and is surely political. We examine compliance with Supreme Court overrulings of precedent-cases in which we might expect the lowest levels of compliance with Supreme Court policy prescriptions. We argue that several variables are relevant to the compliance decision and that those variables fall into two broad categories: characteristics of the Supreme Court precedent and characteristics of the circuit applying the precedent. In our event history analysis, we find that both precedent and circuit characteristics determine whether, and how quickly, a circuit follows a Supreme Court decision that overrules existing precedent; that is, unanimity, complexity, and the age of the overruled precedent, as well as the likelihood of Supreme Court review, are related to the compliance deci...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the dimensional structures of legislators' bill cosponsoring and floor voting activities during the 103rd and 104th Congresses, and find that bill co-sponsoring contains at least three and as many as five distinct dimensions, suggesting that pre-floor legislative activities play an important role in structuring the lines of conflict for floor decisions.
Abstract: The shape of the legislative agenda varies through the legislative process. At the policy debate stage, where legislative proposals are introduced, packaged, and debated, members' bill cosponsoring patterns reveal a multidimensional agenda. At the decision stage on the legislative floor, members' voting patterns reveal a low-dimensional agenda. This article compares the dimensional structures of legislators' bill cosponsoring and floor voting activities during the 103rd and 104th Congresses. The analyses show that bill cosponsoring contains at least three and as many as five distinct dimensions, suggesting that pre-floor legislative activities play an important role in structuring the lines of conflict for floor decisions.
TL;DR: In this article, a model of senatorial treatment of presidential nominations to the lower federal bench, looking both at outcome (whether or not a nomination culminates in confirmation) and process (the length of time it takes the Senate to process a nomination), is presented.
Abstract: Using nominations to Article III district and appeals court judgeships, we test a model of senatorial treatment of presidential nominations to the lower federal bench, looking both at outcome (whether or not a nomination culminates in confirmation) and process (the length of time it takes the Senate to process a nomination). We find evidence that nominee quality matters, as does composition of the Judiciary Committee and pending judicial nominations. Contrary to charges made in the popular press, however, neither race nor gender makes a difference for ultimate success or failure of a nomination. Duration analysis reveals that race (though not gender) does matter for district court nomination processing time. We also find presidential year and term to matter for both levels of court but the outcome of the Bork nomination to affect only appeals court nominations.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the 425 agencies established between 1946 and 1995 and find that agencies created by administrative action are significantly less insulated from presidential control than are agencies created through legislation.
Abstract: Scholars have largely ignored one of the most important ways in which presidents influence the administrative state in the modern era, that is, by creating administrative agencies through executive action. Because they can act unilaterally, presidents alter the kinds of administrative agencies that are created and the control they wield over the federal bureaucracy. We analyze the 425 agencies established between 1946 and 1995 and find that agencies created by administrative action are significantly less insulated from presidential control than are agencies created through legislation. We also find that the ease of congressional legislative action is a significant predictor of the number of agencies created by executive action. We conclude that the very institutional factors that make it harder for Congress to legislate provide presidents new opportunities to create administrative agencies on their own, and to design them in ways that maximize executive control.
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of direct democracy on the size and diversity of state interest group populations was studied, providing an empirical test of a formal model of how access to the initiative process affects group formation and activities.
Abstract: This article studies the effect of direct democracy on the size and diversity of state interest group populations, providing an empirical test of a formal model of how access to the initiative process affects group formation and activities (Boehmke 2000). The model predicts that more groups mobilize and become active in initiative states; this prediction is confirmed by the regression analysis in this paper: direct democracy increases a state's interest group population by about 17%. With an additional assumption, I also generate and test the hypothesis that the increase is disproportionately centered among traditionally underrepresented citizen groups, relative to business and economic groups. This hypothesis is also empirically supported: citizen interest group populations are increased by 29% whereas the increase is only 12% for economic groups, suggesting that direct democracy increases diversity in interest group representation.
TL;DR: The authors found that clergy public speech is relatively pervasive and conveys a significant amount of normative judgments about the workings of the policy process, which is a product of personal motivation situated in an environment conducive to action, including the pressures exerted by the congregation, national political cues, and community.
Abstract: Whether clergy are influencing opinions, setting agendas, mobilizing, or empowering parishioners, the primary mechanism is public speech. Using a national sample of 2,400 ELCA (Lutheran) and Episcopal Church clergy, surveyed in the late summer and fall of 1998, we explore the nature, frequency, and determinants of clergy public speech. We find that clergy public speech is relatively pervasive and conveys a significant amount of normative judgments about the workings of the policy process. In assessing its determinants, we find that clergy public speech is a product of personal motivation situated in an environment conducive to action, which includes the pressures exerted by the congregation, national political cues, and community. Specifically, we find that clergy speak out publicly on political issues when mobilized, but also as a way to represent their congregations in the public sphere and to motivate members to add their distinctive voices to public debate.
TL;DR: This paper explored the attitudinal complexity of African-American support for Black Nationalism and discovered two distinct dimensions of black Nationalism, which they label community nationalism and separatist nationalism, which are distinctly supported by blacks who are either younger, male, or less affluent.
Abstract: Previous research has often treated the ideology of Black Nationalism as a singular, uniform set of beliefs. We explore the attitudinal complexity of African-American support for Black Nationalism and discover two distinct dimensions of Black Nationalism, which we label community nationalism and separatist nationalism. While the former dimension enjoys support among several black subgroups, including more affluent blacks, the latter dimension is distinctly supported by blacks who are either younger, male, or less affluent. Furthermore, community and separatist nationalists generally agree upon a core set of nationalist tenets, although they diverge on the definition and breadth of the black struggle.
TL;DR: This article found that candidates of different parties do not highlight the same issues or positions in their campaign advertising and that campaign rhetoric is strongly motivated by party even when controlling for constituency characteristics and other factors.
Abstract: Prior research demonstrates that many citizens are unable to perceive differences between the two major political parties. In order to investigate whether candidate behavior in campaigns contributes to this perception, we test implications about partisan constraints on campaign rhetoric drawn from the literature on parties and policy convergence. Our results suggest that candidates of different parties do not highlight the same issues or positions in their campaign advertising. We find that campaign rhetoric is strongly motivated by party even when controlling for constituency characteristics and other factors. Thus, there is convergence among candidates of the same party across districts and states and divergence between opposing candidates within districts and states. Our results are based on a detailed content analysis of more than 1,000 campaign advertisements aired by 290 candidates in 153 elections in 37 states during the 1998 midterm elections.
TL;DR: This paper showed that a divided government context has the effect of increasing presidential approval relative to periods of unified government, and that this effect is even stronger among citizens who are knowledgeable about control of government.
Abstract: Divided government provides ambiguous and conflicting information about which branch of government to hold accountable for government performance. The implication for presidents, who are easy targets of blame, is that they are less likely to be held accountable for government's failures during periods of divided government because the public has a plausible alternative for affixing responsibility: the U.S. Congress. Because presidents are punished more heavily for negative outcomes than they are rewarded for favorable ones, we argue that a divided government context has the effect of increasing presidential approval relative to periods of unified government. At the individual level, using data from the 1972-1994 National Election Studies we show that divided government increases the probability that respondents approve of a president's job performance. This effect is even stronger among citizens who are knowledgeable about control of government. Examining approval at the aggregate level from 1949 to 1996,...
TL;DR: Turnout and election closeness are often inconsistent and limited in application to two-party systems as mentioned in this paper. But they have been shown to be related to higher levels of voter participation in Canadian federal elections.
Abstract: Theory suggests that eligible voters should be more likely to cast ballots when election margins are close. Empirical evidence, however, is mixed. Operational definitions of key concepts such as turn-out and election closeness are often inconsistent and limited in application to two-party systems. This paper provides a more generalized test of the turnout-competition link in electoral districts. Data are 1993 and 1997 constituency-level election results for the Canadian House of Commons. Canada provides an excellent case for comparison because it has single-member districts, plurality elections, both national and regional parties, and multiparty competition throughout the nation. Several alternative measures for "turnout" and "closeness" are evaluated in the context of multi-party elections. A new index of competitiveness is developed. Multicandidate measures of closeness are related to higher levels of voter participation in Canadian federal elections.