Elections Have Consequences
Elections and the strategic use of budget deficits
Roland Hodler
Public Choice, July 2011, Pages 149-161
Abstract:
We present a model in which a conservative incumbent with preferences for low public spending can strategically run a budget deficit to prevent the left-wing opposition candidate from choosing high public spending if elected, and possibly also to ensure his own reelection. We find that the incumbent never manipulates the opposition candidate's public spending if he can ensure his own reelection; and that a conservative incumbent who runs a budget deficit to ensure his reelection may somewhat paradoxically choose high public spending before the election.
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The Strategic Use of Prisons in Partisan Gerrymandering
Jason Kelly
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The census data used by most state legislatures to redraw congressional districts includes groups that are not permitted to vote, such as children, non-citizens and the institutionalized. Moreover, the U.S. Census Bureau counts the nearly 2-million individuals who are detained in the country's correctional institutions among the population of the geographical unit in which they are incarcerated rather than their place of residence at the time of their conviction. By shifting a significant proportion of these phantom populations into districts that lean heavily toward the majority party, legislators can free up an equal number of citizens from those districts to be distributed among neighboring marginal ones, thereby increasing that party's likelihood of picking up additional seats in the state legislature. An analysis of the population of correctional institution detainees in each state senate district across 46 states, both before and after the 2000 Census-based redistricting cycle, finds that prison populations do in fact shift systematically from districts controlled by one party to districts controlled by the other when there is a switch in partisan control from one census to the next.
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Opportunism in Polarization: Presidential Success in Senate Key Votes, 1953-2008
Matthew Beckmann & Vimal Kumar
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2011, Pages 488-503
Abstract:
That Congress has experienced increased polarization is clear, and burgeoning is the literature investigating its causes and consequences. Here we examine a counterintuitive wrinkle on the latter. Drawing from a simple game-theoretic model in which a president strategically allocates scarce "political capital" to induce changes in legislators' votes, we show congressional polarization can actually improve a president's prospects for winning key roll-call votes - a hypothesis that emerges inasmuch as polarization enables presidents to concentrate their resources lobbying fewer members (compared to a more homogenous chamber). We test this hypothesis by investigating presidents' success on Congressional Quarterly's "key" Senate roll-call votes, 1953-2008.
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Seth Masket
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, June 2011, Pages 123-147
Abstract:
Contrary to media reports, California's 2003 recall election was anything but a circus. Despite the presence of 135 candidates, just 3 managed to split 94% of the vote, and the winner came close to achieving a majority. In this article, the author uses elite interviews and a social network analysis of campaign donations to study how the Republican Party sought to impose order on the potentially chaotic political environment. The author finds that a network of Republican donors, activists, and officeholders coordinated their efforts to advantage Arnold Schwarzenegger and pressure other Republicans out of the race.
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Race, politics, and punishment
Peter Leeson & Russell Sobel
European Journal of Law and Economics, June 2011, Pages 265-285
Abstract:
This paper empirically evaluates two competing theories of electoral accountability in the context of New Orleans' 2006 mayoral election. According to the democratic efficiency theory, voters can successfully punish ineffective political agents by removing them from office. In contrast, the public choice theory argues that the bundled nature of political goods prevents voters from successfully holding ineffective politicians accountable. We find that although there is limited support for the punishment effect predicted by the democratic efficiency theory, this effect is overwhelmed by the fact that the bundle of goods politicians offer contains elements that pull in opposing directions. This prevents the punishment effect from having any real impact, leading to democratic failure. Our results support the public choice theory of electoral (un)accountability.
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Nicholas Carnes
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Working-class citizens have been numerically underrepresented in policymaking institutions throughout most of America's history. Little is known, however, about the political consequences of this enduring feature of our democratic system. This essay examines the relationship between legislators' class backgrounds and their votes on economic policy in the House of Representatives during the 20th century. Like ordinary Americans, representatives from working-class occupations exhibit more liberal economic preferences than other legislators, especially those from profit-oriented professions. These findings provide the first evidence of a link between the descriptive and substantive representation of social classes in the United States.
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Presidents, Polarization, and Divided Government
Jeffrey Cohen
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2011, Pages 504-520
Abstract:
This article tests two models of extremism versus moderation in presidential policy stances, a party activist theory and a congressional context theory. The party activist theory argues that, due to the electoral and nomination reforms of the mid-1970s, party activists became increasingly important and powerful in their parties. As activists tend to be more policy extreme than rank-and-file voters, and grew more extreme over the past several decades, this theory predicts presidents will also be more policy extreme in the postreform than the prereform era. The congressional context theory focuses on divided government and polarization. It argues that policy-minded presidents must moderate their policy positions during divided government because they need support from the opposition party. However, polarization erects barriers and disincentives for presidential moderation, offsetting the moderating tendencies of divided government. Using data on presidential policy positions from the 1950s through the early 2000s, I test both theories, finding support for the congressional context but not the party activist theory.
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Term limits: Do they really affect fiscal policy choices?
Chiara Dalle Nogare & Roberto Ricciuti
European Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
According to reputational models of Political Economy, a term limit may change the behavior of a chief executive because he does not have to stand for election. We use a dynamic panel data estimation strategy to test this hypothesis in a sample of 52 countries over the period 1977-2000, using social and welfare spending and surplus as policy variables. We are unable to find significant differences between the fiscal policies of term-limited chief executives and other types of government, while when we look at presidential systems only, lame ducks appear to be more likely to cut public spending. This contrasts with previous empirical results based on US states and international data.
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When endocrinology and democracy collide: Emotions, cortisol and voting at national elections
Israel Waismel-Manor, Gal Ifergane & Hagit Cohen
European Neuropsychopharmacology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Faced with stressful experiences, such as uncertainty or novelty, the adrenal glands secrete glucocorticoid hormones to help us cope with stress. Since many decision-making situations are stressful, there is reason to believe that voting is a stressful event. In this study, we asked voters in Israel's national election (N = 113) to report on their general affective state immediately before entering the polling place using the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and to provide us with a saliva sample through which we could evaluate their cortisol levels. Compared to a second sample of voters who reported their affective state on election night (N = 70), we found that voters at the ballot box had higher positive and negative affect. Moreover, our voters at the polling place exhibited cortisol levels that were significantly higher than their own normal levels obtained on a similar day, and significantly higher than those of a second control group sampled the day after the elections (N = 6). Our data demonstrate that elections are exciting, yet stressful events, and it is this stress, among other factors, that elevates the cortisol levels of voters. Since elevated cortisol has been found to affect memory consolidation, impair memory retrieval and lead to risk-seeking behavior, we discuss how these outcomes of elevated cortisol levels may affect voting in general and the field of electoral studies in particular.
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The Effects of Uncontested Elections on Legislator Performance
David Konisky & Michiko Ueda
Legislative Studies Quarterly, May 2011, Pages 199-229
Abstract:
Political competition lies at the core of representative democracy. Yet, uncompetitive elections and uncontested races are widespread in the United States, particularly at the state level. In this article, we analyze the consequences of uncontested elections on lawmaking activity. Our primary hypothesis is that legislators who run unopposed are less active lawmakers than those who were selected through competitive elections. Studying roll-call vote participation and bill introduction and enactment for most of the U.S. states for 1999-2000, we find that state legislators elected in unopposed elections perform more poorly compared to their colleagues elected in competitive contests.
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Daniel Lewis
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, June 2011, Pages 198-222
Abstract:
One common critique of direct democracy posits that minority rights are endangered by institutions like ballot initiatives and referenda. Empirical research testing this claim, however, has produced conflicting results that leave the question of direct democracy's effect on minority rights open to debate. This study extends previous research by providing a more direct test of this criticism - it compares anti-minority policy proposals from direct democracy states to similar proposals from states without direct democracy institutions. The author examines both ballot proposals and traditional legislative bills to account for both the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy. Analyzing anti-minority proposals from all 50 states from 1995 to 2004 shows that direct democracy states are more likely to pass these proposals than states without direct democracy institutions.
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Securing the base: Electoral competition under variable turnout
Michael Peress
Public Choice, July 2011, Pages 87-104
Abstract:
I evaluate the 'Securing the Base' strategy, which prescribes that candidates position themselves away from the political center in order to maximize turnout among their supporters and reduce defections of their supporters to third party candidates. My results support the notion that voters abstain due to indifference and imply that candidate positioning has a large effect on voter turnout and third party voting. Nonetheless, my results indicate that the candidates can best compete by adopting centrist positions. While a candidate can increase turnout among his supporters by moving away from the center, many moderate voters will defect to his opponent.
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Balancing in the U.S. States, 1978-2009
Michael Bailey & Elliott Fullmer
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, June 2011, Pages 148-166
Abstract:
Since the Civil War, the president's party has lost seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in all but three midterm election cycles. Many attribute this pattern to "balancing" by moderate voters who prefer a Democratic Congress when Republicans control the White House, and vice versa. Although a number of scholars have tested the balancing hypothesis, the debate remains unsettled. We argue that the U.S. states provide an excellent way to analyze the issue further. Similar to the national government, states feature an executive and (in most cases) a bicameral legislature whose members come up for election in both gubernatorial and state midterm years. If voters balance, one should observe such behavior in state elections when an executive's partisanship is known and a legislative choice is necessary. We examine state legislative elections from 1978 to 2009 and find evidence consistent with the balancing hypothesis.
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Multiple votes, ballot truncation and the two-party system: An experiment
Arnaud Dellis, Sean D'Evelyn & Katerina Sherstyuk
Social Choice and Welfare, July 2011, Pages 171-200
Abstract:
Duverger's law states that Plurality Voting tends to favor a two-party system. We conducted laboratory experiments to study whether voting procedures other than Plurality Voting could favor a two-party system as well. Plurality Voting is compared with Approval Voting and Dual Voting, both of which allow to vote for multiple candidates, but differ in whether voters are required to cast all their votes. We find that in most elections held under Plurality Voting and Approval Voting, at most two candidates are viable. By contrast, three candidates are viable in a sizable number of elections held under Dual Voting due to strategic voting. Our evidence suggests that Approval Voting may encourage a two-party system, whereas Dual Voting may encourage multipartism. The voters' ability to truncate ballots (i.e., not cast all their votes) is essential for supporting the two-party system under Approval Voting.
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The proximity paradox: The legislative agenda and the electoral success of ideological extremists
Justin Buchler
Public Choice, July 2011, Pages 1-19
Abstract:
This paper presents a new approach to spatial models of legislative elections in which voters have preferences over the bundles of roll call votes implied by candidate locations rather than over the locations themselves. With such preferences, voters with single-peaked, symmetric preferences and perfect information can sincerely prefer a distant candidate to a more proximate candidate. Moreover, negative agenda control in Congress makes such preference orderings inevitable, so party agenda control can allow majority party extremists to defeat more centrist minority party candidates. The model has implications for theories of parties in Congress, and spatial modeling more broadly.