Showing papers in "The Journal of Politics in 2003"

Women Running "as Women": Candidate Gender, Campaign Issues, and Voter-Targeting Strategies

Abstract: Previous research has demonstrated that voter stereotypes about gender place certain strategic imperatives on female candidates. This study examines the effects of the interplay of candidate gender and campaign strategy using a new data set consisting of survey responses from U.S. House and state legislative candidates who ran for office in 1996 or 1998. We demonstrate that women gain a strategic advantage when they run “as women,” stressing issues that voters associate favorably with female candidates and targeting female voters. These findings suggest that one of the keys to success for female candidates is to wage campaigns that use voters’ dispositions toward gender as an asset rather than a liability.

Not All Cues Are Created Equal: The Conditional Impact of Female Candidates on Political Engagement

Abstract: Over the past several decades women's lives in the public sphere have increased dramatically, providing women with more political resources than they have ever had before. Yet the gap between men and women's level of political engagement in a number of key areas of political life has persisted. This suggests that political or contextual factors, rather than resources or socialization, may be key in understanding these differences. One contextual factor that may be important to female political engagement is competitive female candidates. The hypothesis that visible and competitive women matter to female citizens is tested by examining the relationship between various political attitudes and behaviors and the presence (or absence) of a viable statewide female candidate. The models indicate that there is overwhelming support for the hypothesis that women citizens in states with competitive and visible female candidates increase their political engagement. These results suggest that descriptive representatio...

Improving Governance: A New Logic for Empirical Research. By Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Carolyn J. Hill. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 212. $60.00.)

Abstract: factors that influence economic development decisions. Reese and Rosenfeld conclude that environmental forces such as economic conditions, the formal structure of government, or place in the spatial urban hierarchy do not determine the economic development approaches. The only external force that has some influence is intercity competition. The authors conclude that civic culture has a more significant impact on such decisions. A key factor in all communities that needs to be explored further is the role of leadership and the impact an individual can have upon taking advantage of his/her position within the economic development hierarchy to drive policy. The position and influence of such an individual is often determined by civic culture. The authors implicitly recognize this, but a more explicit explanation of the role of leadership would be useful. This study points out both the uniqueness and the complexity of individual communities in the United States and Canada. While certain generalities among them can be drawn, each community responds to external forces in ways that have been shaped by its history and immediate circumstances. The authors demonstrate the importance civic culture plays in shaping these responses in economic development policy. Reese and Rosenfeld have identified an area of research in urban public policy making that should spawn further investigation.

Getting Out the Vote in Local Elections: Results from Six Door-to-Door Canvassing Experiments

Abstract: Prior to the November 6, 2001 elections, randomized voter mobilization experiments were conducted in Bridgeport, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Raleigh, and St. Paul. Names appearing on official lists of registered voters were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. A few days before Election Day, the treatment group received a face-to-face contact from a coalition of nonpartisan student and community organizations, encouraging them to vote. After the election, voter turnout records were used to compare turnout rates among people assigned to treatment and control groups. Consistent with the recent experimental results reported by Gerber and Green (2000b), the findings here indicate that face-to-face voter mobilization was effective in stimulating voter turnout across a wide spectrum of local elections.

Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty

Abstract: This article explores the roots of white support for capital punishment in the United States. Our analysis addresses individual-level and contextual factors, paying particular attention to how racial attitudes and racial composition influence white support for capital punishment. Our findings suggest that white support hinges on a range of attitudes wider than prior research has indicated, including social and governmental trust and individualist and authoritarian values. Extending individual-level analyses, we also find that white responses to capital punishment are sensitive to local context. Perhaps most important, our results clarify the impact of race in two ways. First, racial prejudice emerges here as a comparatively strong predictor of white support for the death penalty. Second, black residential proximity functions to polarize white opinion along lines of racial attitude. As the black percentage of county residents rises, so too does the impact of racial prejudice on white support for capital pu...

The Shifting Foundations of Public Opinion about Gay Rights

Abstract: This study tests two explanations for the recent increase in support among the American public for gay rights policies. One possibility is that shifts in the aggregate levels of predispositions such as egalitarianism, moral traditionalism, feelings toward gays and lesbians, partisanship, and ideology produced changes in policy opinions. Another possibility is that shifts in the underlying structure of opinion—that is, shifts in the how citizens used these predispositions to think about the issue—produced changes in support for gay rights. An analysis of data from the 1992, 1996, and 2000 National Election Studies showed that both types of shifts explained why Americans became increasingly favorable toward gay rights policies over this span.

The Divided Electorate: Media Use and Political Involvement

Abstract: Research examining media effects on political attitudes has put forth broadly conflicting explanations: media use diminishes knowledge and involvement and contributes to political cynicism and declining turnout; media use contributes to learning, political involvement, trust, efficacy, and mobilization. We address these explanations with detailed measures for the Netherlands in 1998. A dual effects hypothesis is supported: regularly watching television news on the public service channels has positive effects on cognition, efficacy, and turnout, whereas regularly opting for commercial television news has negative effects. Viewing behavior thus separates the more knowledgeable, the efficacious, and the politically involved from those who are not, revealing what might be described as a "virtuous circle" for some and a "spiral of cynicism" for others.

The Power of Television Images: The First Kennedy-Nixon Debate Revisited

Abstract: How does television affect political behavior? I address this question by describing an experiment where participants either watched a televised version of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate or listened to an audio version. I used this debate in part because despite popular conceptions, there is no extant evidence that television images had any impact on audience reactions. I find that television images have significant effects—they affect overall debate evaluations, prime people to rely more on personality perceptions in their evaluations, and enhance what people learn. Television images matter in politics, and may have indeed played an important role in the first Kennedy-Nixon debate.

When Parties Matter: The Conditional Influence of Party Positions on Voter Opinions about European Integration

Abstract: While the literature on public support for European integration often suggests that political elites play an important role in shaping public attitudes toward the European Union, the empirical findings to date reveal an inconsistent pattern of political effects. The causal direction of this relationship has also been questioned. Using data from the Eurobarometer surveys, this article tests hypotheses to explain national, partisan, and individual-level variations in the strength of the party/voter connection. The results of a nonrecursive model demonstrate that party positions do influence electorate opinion, but that this effect varies with levels of disagreement among parties, party unity, issue salience, and party attachment. These results help to explain when and where political parties will exercise the greatest influence over public opinion.

Gender Stereotyping in State Executive Elections: Candidate Selection and Success

Abstract: Research on gender stereotypes has found that voters ascribe certain beliefs and traits to candidates based on the candidate's sex. Most of this research relies on experimental data and examines stereotyping solely in terms of voter decision making. In contrast, we examine state executive office elections to determine if stereotypes influence both candidate selection and success. State executive elections are ideal for studying gender stereotypes as many of the offices focus on specific policy issues that correspond with stereotypical competencies of male and female candidates. We find considerable support for our expectation of an interaction between candidate sex and office type in candidate selection: women are less likely to run for offices that are inconsistent with their stereotypical strengths and, beginning in 1990, somewhat more likely to run for stereotypically consistent offices. In terms of candidate success, however, we do not find that women's likelihood of winning varies strongly across off...

The Foundations of Latino Voter Partisanship: Evidence from the 2000 Election

Abstract: Studies of partisan identification in the U.S. have concentrated on Anglo Americans. We argue that by focusing only on the descendents of naturalized, mostly white, immigrants, that previous research may have been biased toward largely sociological accounts for the development of partisan attitudes. Here we study the partisan affiliations of Latino voters and argue that by examining their partisan attitudes we should find that their partisanship is more explicitly political than Anglos. We utilize a telephone survey of Latino likely voters in the 2000 presidential election and find that Latino voter partisanship is shaped by both political and social factors.

Institutional Context and the Assignment of Political Responsibility

Abstract: Comparative analyses of economic voting in Europe and in the American states suggest that institutional context structures the assignment of political responsibility for policy outcomes. Since most of it has proceeded at the aggregate level, however, the extant literature is ill equipped to comment critically on the ability of individuals to incorporate information about institutional context into their responsibility judgments and on whether the effects of such contextual factors outweigh those of individual-level characteristics. This article analyzes attributions of executive versus legislative responsibility for fiscal policy outcomes in the American states and represents the first attempt to integrate both institutional context and responsibility attributions into a single analysis. Exploiting recent advances in multilevel modeling techniques, this article analyzes the extent to which individuals’ responsibility judgments are shaped by institutional and individual-level factors and how, in turn, thes...

The Not-So-Simple Calculus of Winning: Potential U.S. House Candidates' Nomination and General Election Prospects

Abstract: As the individual qualities of potential House candidates improve, their prospects in both the nomination and general election go up. The same is not true, however, for two key characteristics of the district context in which potential candidates might run: the party of the potential candidate in relation to the incumbent and the partisan makeup of the district. The direction of the effects of both incumbency and district partisanship on prospects, in contrast to the effects of quality, depends upon the stage of the election process. Using a survey of district informants in a random sample of House districts, we find that incumbent and potential-candidate quality both affect potential candidates' prospects of winning, with “strategic qualities” generally having a stronger direct effect than “personal qualities.” District partisanship has offsetting and strong effects on potential candidates’ chances in both stages: Nomination prospects decline as the partisan makeup of the district favors the potential ca...

Reassessing the “Race to the Bottom” in State Welfare Policy

Abstract: On the assumption that poor people migrate to obtain better welfare benefits, the magnet hypothesis predicts that a state's poverty rate increases when its welfare benefit rises faster than benefits in surrounding states. The benefit competition hypothesis proposes that states lower welfare benefits to avoid attracting the poor from neighboring states. Previous investigations, which yield support for these propositions, suffer from weaknesses in model specification and methodology. We correct these deficiencies in a simultaneous equation model including a state's poverty rate and its benefit level for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) as endogenous variables. We estimate the model using pooled annual data for the American states from 1960 to 1990 and find that a state's poverty rate does not jump significantly when its welfare payments outpace benefits in neighboring states. Furthermore, there is no evidence of vigorous benefit competition among states: states respond to decreases in neighbor...

The Incentive to Listen: Progressive Ambition, Resources, and Opinion Monitoring among State Legislators

Abstract: This article argues that political ambitions combined with the resources offered by professional legislatures can enhance the prospects for representation of citizen interests because ambitious legislators have strong incentives to closely monitor constituent opinions while they wait for a strategic opportunity to run for higher office. The effect of ambition for higher office should be especially pronounced in professional legislatures that provide members with high salaries, staff, and office budgets to aid their efforts. The relationship between ambition, legislative professionalism, and behavior are tested using data drawn from a survey of upper and lower chamber members in eight state legislatures. The results show that legislators who are progressively ambitious spend more time monitoring public opinion than legislators who are non-ambitious or statically ambitious and that legislative resources augment this effect.

Framing Support for the Supreme Court in the Aftermath of Bush v. Gore

Abstract: Public support for political actors and institutions depends on the frames emphasized in elite debate, especially following a political controversy. In the aftermath of Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court made itself the object of political controversy because it effectively ended the 2000 presidential election. Opponents of the decision framed the Supreme Court ruling as partisan and “stealing the election,” while supporters framed it as a principled vote based on legal considerations. Using survey data, we examine how framing the controversy in these terms shaped the Court's public support. In so doing, we examine the distinction between specific support (e.g., confidence in officeholders) and diffuse support (e.g., institutional legitimacy). We find that framing the decision in terms of partisan decision making influences specific support, but it does not affect diffuse support. However, framing the justices' motives in terms of ending the election, a specific consequence of the decision, reduces diffuse s...

Can Strategic Interaction Divert Diversionary Behavior? A Model of U.S. Conflict Propensity

Abstract: Current conflict research increasingly suggests the relevance of unobserved strategic processes in determining how and why states engage in conflict. Alastair Smith's (1996, 1998) work, in particular, highlights the likelihood that diversionary foreign policy behavior is inhibited by the very fact that democratic leaders' political needs are abundantly apparent to their potential targets. So, the very factors that give democratic leaders the incentive to divert also give their targets incentives to maintain low profiles. Yet, few empirical tests of this proposition exist in diversionary work or elsewhere. This article seeks to provide such a test in the context of Fordham's (1998a) innovative explanation for American diversionary behavior. I test the strategic interaction hypothesis in a Zero-Inflated Poisson (ZIP) model and evaluate the utility of the ZIP model for modeling an unobserved process. The results suggest both the importance of strategic interaction and the power of the ZIP model in accounting...

The Relationship Between Independence and Judicial Review in Post‐Communist Courts

Abstract: Following the collapse of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, constitutional designers codified rules establishing independent judiciaries. To what degree do these constitutional and statutory guarantees of independence reflect the actual behavior of courts? Our analysis demonstrates that official judicial power does not predict expressions of judicial review—overturning legislation in whole or in part. Rather, exogenous factors, including economic conditions, executive power, identity of the litigants and legal issues, influence the likelihood that courts will nullify laws. Our findings should caution both scholars and institutional designers. Both formal and informal factors create the parameters in which courts operate. Although courts have become more powerful institutions in the post-communist era, they face a diverse set of constraints on independent action.

Defenders of Democracy? Legitimacy, Popular Acceptance, and the South African Constitutional Court

Abstract: The question of how courts in newly emerging democracies are able to act in a “counter-majoritarian” fashion is of burning theoretical and practical importance. Consequently, we investigate the relationship between the legitimacy of the South African Constitutional Court and its success at generating acquiescence to its decisions even when they are unpopular. Based on a national survey, we begin by describing the institutional loyalty the Court enjoys among its constituents. We next consider the consequences of legitimacy by determining whether people are willing to acquiesce to an adverse Court decision on a civil liberties dispute. Our central hypothesis—that legitimate institutions are capable of generating acceptance of decisions, even when citizens find the policy highly disagreeable—receives only conditional support. What little legitimacy the Constitutional Court has acquired does not readily translate into acquiescence to its decisions. The apparent inability of the Court to perform the role of a ...

The European Parliament and Supranational Party System: A Study in Institutional Development

Abstract: ment in Chapter 6, rising economic openness across industrial democracies causes greater intra-party conflict over monetary policy, which decreases cabinet durability, which in turn leads many governments to reform to raise central bank independence, which ends up increasing cabinet durability. Following this causal mechanism, both central bank independence and cabinet durability are endogenous. They should be modeled simultaneously rather than in a single equation model framework.

Voter Turnout and Candidate Strategies in American Elections

Abstract: Most spatial models of two-candidate competition imply that candidates have electoral incentives to present similar, centrist policies. We modify the standard Downsian model to include three observations supported by empirical research on American elections: that voters are prepared to abstain if neither competitor is sufficiently attractive (abstention due to alienation) or if the candidates are insufficiently differentiated (abstention due to indifference); that voters are influenced by factors such as education, race, and partisanship that are not directly tied to the candidates’ positions in the current campaign; and that voters’ nonpolicy characteristics correlate with their policy preferences. Our results suggest that voters’ turnout decisions and their nonpolicy characteristics, even if the candidates in the course of a campaign cannot manipulate the latter, are nonetheless necessary for understanding candidates’ policy strategies.

The Marginal and Time-Varying Effect of Public Approval on Presidential Success in Congress

Abstract: We analyze the relationship between public approval and presidential success in Congress using time-varying parameter regression methods. Cues from constituency, ideology, and party dominate congressional vote choice, so the effect of public approval of the president is typically marginal. Because the strength of these primary cues varies through time, the effect of public approval on presidential success should also be time varying. Analysis of conflictual roll-call votes from 1953 through 2000 using the time-varying Kalman filter reveals that the effect of public approval on presidential success is marginal and changing through time. These models assume that the time variation is a stochastic process, and finding time-varying relationships may indicate model misspecification. Our theory, however, suggests that this time variation depends on a systematic factor—partisanship. A better specified model that allows systematic parameter variation confirms that the level of partisanship conditions the relation...

Beyond the Demand-Input Model: A Theory of Representational Linkages

Abstract: We offer a theory of the direction and nature of representational linkages between constituents and their elected representatives based on two attributes of issues: their complexity and their relationship to the lines of partisan cleavage. We show that the theory is compatible with the existing evidence on representation and then offer results of tests of new predictions from the theory for both simple and complex party-defining issues. For additional evidence of the dyadic basis of these findings, we also show that the strength of the observed linkages varies in accordance with theoretical expectations about the seniority of members of Congress and, for senators, recency of election. We also explain how the theory can account for a number of seemingly contradictory empirical findings in the large literature on policy representation and how it allows scholars to make precise predictions about the characteristics of representational linkages.

Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. By Robert Gilpin with the assistance of Jean M. Gilpin. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Pp. 423. $65.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.)

Abstract: (Cambridge University Press, 1999), which appeared after the essay was written. (More generally, despite the February 2002 publication date, the book contains no references to any work published later than 1999.) Constructivism’s evil twin, post-modern deconstructionism, which tore through international relations in the early 1990s, probably receives more attention (largely negative) in the book than is warranted at present. The entire work is self-consciously “mainstream” (xiii). Nevertheless, some important theoretical approaches receive almost no attention, notably rational choice (now the most prevalent formal modeling approach in IR) and feminist theory (the focus of one of the largest sub-sections in the ISA). Similarly, while all of the contributors hold named chairs and two are former presidents of the ISA, they represent a relatively narrow generational and geographical niche. There are no contributors from the major graduate schools in the U.S. Northeast, Midwest, or West coast or from outside the United States, and no younger scholars. In the first essay of the book, Lapid appeals for greater attention to flexible, middle-ground theories. After reading this survey, I am struck by the possibility that we may already have achieved this provided IR is viewed as a collection of middle-range theories specific to various regions and historical circumstances. For example, while structural realism may be an excellent description of the European state system from 1848 to 1945, radical theories could best describe the political situation in most of the Third World during the same time, and constructivism, the behavior of the emerging world powers, United States and Japan. The primary problem with contemporary IR is that all of these approaches claim to be universal theories. But to paraphrase Dr. Benjamin Spock, we may know more than we think we know.

Voided Ballots in the 1996 Presidential Election: A County-Level Analysis

Abstract: This county-level study examines factors associated with the rate of voided presidential ballots in the 1996 elections. Evidence indicates that voided ballots are significantly more prevalent in counties with higher percentages of African Americans and Hispanics. The relationship between voided ballots and African Americans disappears, however, in counties using voting equipment that can be programmed to eliminate overvoting. The rate of voided ballots is lower in larger counties and in counties with a higher percentage of high school graduates. The rate of voided ballots declines as the number of presidential candidates on the ballot increases, but only up to a point, and then rises with further increases. Lever machines generate the lowest rates of voided ballots among types of voting equipment, with punch card systems generating the highest rates.

Why Is Research on the Effects of Negative Campaigning So Inconclusive? Understanding Citizens’ Perceptions of Negativity

Abstract: Prior research has produced inconclusive results concerning the effects of negative campaigning. Researchers’ reliance on encyclopedic, even-handed measures of the tone of campaigns may help account for this inconsistency, for such measures are unlikely to reflect the way that most citizens process information about campaigns. Testing this argument by analyzing data from three 1998 gubernatorial campaigns, we observe a lack of consensus in citizens’ perceptions of these campaigns, a lack of convergence between citizens’ perceptions and social science-style classifications of these campaigns, and an array of biasing factors in citizens’ perceptions.

Economic Exit, Interdependence, and Conflict

Abstract: This article examines the question of whether economic interdependence constrains or motivates interstate conflict. The theoretical model predicts when and how interdependence influences conflict, using exit costs to separate economic interdependence from less binding economic interaction. Analysis of the model suggests that when exit costs exceed an endurance threshold for at least one state, the threat of exit becomes a viable but limited bargaining tool. Exceeding this threshold increases low-level conflict as states use economic and diplomatic tools to resolve demands, but it decreases high-level conflict because states take advantage of more efficient means of dispute resolution. If the stakes are too high, however, exit costs fail to check conflict, and the economic relationship becomes an ineffective bargaining arena. Empirical analysis provides support for the hypotheses derived from the model.

A Promise Fulfilled? Open Primaries and Representation

Abstract: Academics and political practitioners alike have long concerned themselves with the representativeness of primary electorates. Hoping to moderate the ideological extremity of primary voters, state parties have increasingly adopted more open primary eligibility rules. This article explores the extent to which open and modified-open primaries actually attract a more representative electorate than their closed counterparts. Using state-level exit poll data from 1988 through 2000, we compare the ideological, age, and income representation of primary electorates with general election voters. We find that open primaries result in the ideological convergence of the parties’ primary electorates, although the extent of this convergence is contingent upon the candidate choices within individual election years. Notably, open primaries are responsible for the inclusion of younger participants in both parties’ primaries. While reformed primary structure may weaken party control over the nomination process, it clearly ...