Money and Politics
Michelle Ryan, Alexander Haslam & Clara Kulich
Psychology of Women Quarterly, March 2010, Pages 56-64
Abstract:
Recent archival and experimental research has revealed that women are more likely than men to be appointed to leadership positions when an organization is in crisis. As a result, women often confront a "glass cliff" in which their position as leader is precarious. Our first archival study examined the 2005 UK general election and found that, in the Conservative party, women contested harder to win seats than did men. Our second study experimentally investigated the selection of a candidate by 80 undergraduates in a British political science class to contest a by-election in a seat that was either safe (held by own party with a large margin) or risky (held by an opposition party with a large margin). Results indicated that a male candidate was more likely than a woman to be selected to contest a safe seat, but there was a strong preference for a female rather than a male appointment when the seat was described as hard to win. Implications for women's participation in politics are discussed.
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Giving the People What They Want? The Distribution of Earmarks in the U.S. House of Representatives
Jeffrey Lazarus
American Journal of Political Science, April 2010, Pages 338-353
Abstract:
The common wisdom in journalistic accounts of earmarking is that Congress distributes earmarks on a purely political basis, without any consideration for the demand for federal spending. Academic accounts similarly argue that factors internal to Congress are preeminent in determining where earmarks go, even more than for other types of pork-barrel spending. Using earmarks appearing in the fiscal year 2008 Appropriations bills, I search for both chamber-based and demand-side determinants of the distribution of earmarks. I find that both types of factors are significantly related to the number of earmarks that a House member receives. This result indicates that even while earmarking, members of Congress are at least minimally responsive to voter preferences and calls into question whether earmarks should be treated as an outlier within the universe of spending allocation mechanisms.
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Special Elections to the U.S. House of Representatives: A General Election Barometer?
David Smith & Thomas Brunell
Legislative Studies Quarterly, May 2010, Pages 283-297
Abstract:
Vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives are filled using special elections. These elections occur off the usual American electoral cycle, and their results are routinely portrayed by the American mass media as indications of what to expect in the next general election. We examined the predictive power of special elections results with respect to the general election outcomes for the U.S. House of Representatives from 1900 to 2008. We found that special elections that yield a change in partisan control do have predictive power regarding general election results.
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René Lindstädt & Ryan Vander Wielen
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies of legislative shirking have made important contributions to our understanding of democratic accountability and representative government. In the literature, legislative shirking is defined as behavior that diverges from constituency demands and seen as the result of imperfect monitoring and ineffective punishment by constituencies. Most research has focused on ineffective punishment as the main cause of legislative shirking. In this study, we focus on the other side of the shirking story - imperfect monitoring. We argue that variation in information cost and constituency memory leads to systematic variation in constituent monitoring over time. Furthermore, if constituent monitoring varies across time, and assuming that constituents are not the only cue that legislators rely on, we expect time-dependent legislative shirking. We develop a simple theoretical model of legislative decision making with time-dependent monitoring, which we then empirically test using legislative roll-call data. Specifically, we look at how the policy positions of U.S. senators change over the course of their six-year terms. We find that a substantial number of senators engage in behavior consistent with systematic, time-dependent shirking. Furthermore, our results show that when senators shirk in a time-dependent manner, they systematically move toward extreme positions when constituent monitoring is low and moderate when it is high. Thus, we conclude that constituents do provide a constraint on legislative behavior.
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William Rinner
Yale Law Journal, March 2010, Pages 1060-1112
Abstract:
This Note attempts to reroute a burgeoning area of campaign finance scholarship and reform. Though many previous proposals have enshrined liberty or equality as the sole animating value to pursue through doctrinal and political means, few have considered the impact of campaign finance regulation on citizen participation. Those that have proposed participation as a goal often remain tied to unworkable or self-defeating notions of equality. In building an alternative model of maximizing participation, this Note rejects the premise that direct political action such as volunteering embodies a superior form of participation to contributions, but recognizes the externalities that the latter form may produce. It proposes a new mechanism for reform: a cap and trade policy in which citizens can increase their rights to contribute to political candidates or parties by purchasing permits from other contributors. Derived from proposals to regulate pollution in environmental economics, this mechanism serves as a helpful alternative to ineffective and inefficient contribution limits.
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John Seiter, Harry Weger, Andrea Jensen & Harold Kinzer
Journal of Social Psychology, May-June 2010, Pages 278-300
Abstract:
This study examined the effects of background nonverbal behavior displayed with the purpose of undermining one's opponent in televised debates. Students watched one of four versions of a televised debate. In each, while the speaking debater appeared on the main screen, subscreens displayed her nonspeaking opponent's background nonverbal behavior. In one version, the non-speaking debater remained "stone faced" during her opponent's speech, while in the other three she nonverbally displayed occasional disagreement, nearly constant disagreement, or both agreement and disagreement. After viewing the debates, students rated the debaters' credibility, appropriateness, objectivity, and debate skills, in addition to judging who won the debate. Analysis indicated that background nonverbal behavior influenced audience perceptions of debaters' credibility, appropriateness, objectivity, debate skill, and the extent to which the debate was won. These results suggest that adding nonverbal agreement to expressions of nonverbal disagreement do not reduce the negative impacts of communicating disagreement nonverbally during an opponent's speech and may in fact further decrease the audiences' perception of a debater's credibility and overall performance.
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Money, Political Ambition, and the Career Decisions of Politicians
Michael Keane & Antonio Merlo
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, February 2010
Abstract:
In this paper we assess the impact of a variety of policies that may influence the career decisions of members of the U.S. Congress, using the empirical framework of Diermeier, Keane and Merlo (2005). These policies alter incentives to run for re-election, run for higher office or leave Congress, by altering wages, non-pecuniary rewards and career prospects (both in and out of Congress). We find that reducing the relative wage of politicians would substantially reduce the duration of congressional careers. Notably, however, the effect varies considerably across different types of politicians. A reduction in the congressional wage would disproportionately induce exit from Congress by "skilled" politicians, Democrats, and politicians who were relatively young when first elected. Interestingly, however, it would not cause the type of politicians who most value legislative accomplishments ("achievers") to disproportionately exit Congress. Thus, wage reductions would not reduce the "quality" composition of Congress in this sense. Term limits also have similar effects on achievers and non-achievers. However, we find that term limits would disproportionately induce members of the majority party to exit Congress. This has the interesting implication that term limits make it more difficult to sustain substantial congressional majorities over time. We do find three types of policies that disproportionately induce non-achievers to leave Congress: (i) elimination of seniority as a determinant of key committee assignments, (ii) restricting private sector employment after leaving Congress, and (iii) reducing the seniority advantage in elections.
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Congressional Frequent Flyers: Demand- and Supply-Side Explanations for Privately Sponsored Travel
Beth Rosenson
Legislative Studies Quarterly, May 2009, Pages 245-271
Abstract:
Privately sponsored congressional travel raises questions about the influence of interest groups on lawmakers and about legislative behavior. I used multiple regression to explain variation in congressional travel, looking at 15,825 trips, both domestic and overseas, taken by House and Senate members and their staff between 2001 and 2004. I found that both supply-side and demand-side factors influence congressional travel. Electoral vulnerability corresponds with reduced trip-taking, and institutional power is associated with greater trip-taking, although not to the extent that rent-seeking theory might predict. Members' racial or ethnic minority status also corresponds with greater trip-taking in the House. Pending retirement also influences trip-taking, but in the opposite direction from what some "shirking" theories would predict.
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Uninformed Voters for Sale: Electoral Competition, Information and Interest Groups in the US
Tim Wegenast
Kyklos, May 2010, Pages 271-300
Abstract:
This paper analyses how certain electoral settings affect the activity of special interest groups within US state politics. The main result of cross-sectional regression analyses suggests that informed and educated voters prevent political parties from catering to special interests, diminishing the number of lobby registrations, the total amount of campaign contributions as well as groups' overall influence. Electoral competition is believed to exert a curvilinear effect on groups' importance within the political decision making process of each state. Another finding indicates that, in a situation of high electoral competition, voters' level of information plays a pivotal role in determining interest groups' activities. Parties seem to increasingly value median voter's concerns whenever the electorate is informed and political races are expected to be close. An environment of competitive elections and uninformed voters, in contrast, furthers interest groups' activity and strengthens their position within the political arena. This is explained by the rationale that, under such circumstances, politicians increasingly exchange narrowly targeted policies for campaign contributions in order to buy the votes of impressionable citizens.
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Stranger Danger: Redistricting, Incumbent Recognition, and Vote Choice
M.V. Hood & Seth McKee
Social Science Quarterly, June 2010, Pages 344-358
Objectives: We take a step forward in examining the electoral effects of redistricting by: (1) demonstrating that voters with a new incumbent because of redistricting are less likely to recognize their representative, and (2) voters are less likely to vote for their representative if they fail to recognize him or her.
Methods: Our data come from a survey of white respondents who resided in the redrawn Eighth District of Georgia for the 2006 U.S. House elections. We use probit regressions to first measure the effect of redistricting on incumbent recognition. Then, we assess the likelihood of voting for the incumbent depending on whether a respondent was redrawn or has the same incumbent after redistricting, and whether or not the respondent could recognize his or her representative.
Results: Our analyses make it clear that redrawn voters were much less likely to recognize their incumbent and it is the inability to recognize one's incumbent, irrespective of whether the representative has changed due to redistricting, which accounts for a reduced likelihood of voting for the incumbent.
Conclusions: Other scholars have examined the relationship between redistricting and incumbent recognition. Likewise, many have evaluated the effects of redistricting on vote choice. This article, however, is the first to merge these two relationships. We find that redrawn constituents are less likely to know who their representative is, and it is indeed a lack of familiarity that reduces an incumbent's vote share. Thus, we have shown empirically that the absence of a personal vote, which is exacerbated by redistricting, proves electorally harmful to the incumbent.
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The Seeds of Negativity: Knowledge and Money
Mitchell Lovett & Ron Shachar
University of Rochester Working Paper, April 2010
Abstract:
This paper studies the tendency to use negative ads. For this purpose we focus on an interesting industry (political campaigns) and an intriguing empirical regularity (the tendency to "go negative" is higher in close races). We present a model of electoral competition in which ads inform voters either on the good traits of the candidate or on the bad traits of his opponent. We find that in equilibrium the proportion of negative ads depends on both voters' knowledge and the candidate's budget. Furthermore, for an interesting subset of the parameter space, negativity increases in both knowledge and budget. Using data on the elections for the US House of Representative in 2000, 2002 and 2004, we examine the model and its implications. Using non-structural estimation we find that negativity indeed increases in both voters' knowledge and the candidate's budget. Furthermore, we also find that knowledge and budget mediate the effect of closeness on negativity. Using structural estimation we reinforce these findings. Specifically, we find that the model's parameters are within the subset of the parameters space discussed above. Thus, the evidence implies that the model is not only helpful in identifying variables that were ignored by previous studies (i.e., knowledge and budget) but also in explaining an intriguing empirical regularity.