Accountable
Penalizing the Party: Health Care Reform Issue Voting in the 2010 Election
David Konisky & Lilliard Richardson
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many political pundits characterized the 2010 election as a referendum on President Obama's health care reform law. The political science literature on issue voting, however, does not consistently demonstrate that these types of policy evaluations are central to citizens' vote choices. Moreover, existing theories suggest different predictions about how the health care reform issue would affect elections across different levels of government. Studying data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), the analysis indicates that those opposed to health care reform were less likely to vote for Democratic candidates in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, state gubernatorial, and state attorneys general contests, controlling for partisan affiliation, political ideology, perceptions of the economy, and evaluations of other salient policy issues. These findings suggest that, across the board, Democrats were penalized for their support of health care reform, and more generally provide evidence of the role of noneconomic issue voting in U.S. elections.
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The Electoral Consequences of Large Fiscal Adjustments
Alberto Alesina, Dorian Carloni & Giampaolo Lecce
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
The conventional wisdom regarding the political consequences of large reductions of budget deficits is that they are very costly for the governments which implement them: they are punished by voters at the following elections. In the present paper, instead, we find no evidence that governments which quickly reduce budget deficits are systematically voted out of office in a sample of 19 OECD countries from 1975 to 2008. We also take into consideration issues of reverse causality, namely the possibility that only "strong and popular" governments can implement fiscal adjustments and thus they are not voted out of office "despite" having reduced the deficits. In the end we conclude that many governments can reduce deficits avoiding an electoral defeat.
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David Law
Georgetown Law Journal, March 2011, Pages 779-835
Abstract:
The organizational structure of a judicial system has systematic implications for the ideological slant of judicial policymaking. These implications are, however, rarely discussed and poorly understood. This Article uses the prospect of court-rigging to illustrate both the impact of institutional design on judicial policymaking and the perils of taking institutional design for granted. Political leaders often pursue a form of entrenchment by attempting to imbue the courts with an enduring ideological bias. But the most familiar strategies for achieving this type of entrenchment - namely, court-packing and gerrymandering - are doomed to enjoy only limited success in the context of the Federal Judiciary. Comparative analysis of the judiciary's organizational structure, by contrast, highlights the existence of design vulnerabilities that could be exploited to greater effect. Examination of the Japanese judiciary in particular suggests that a more effective strategy would be to restructure the federal courts by delegating power over sensitive policy and personnel decisions to ideologically reliable, self-replicating agents who are insulated from the effects of regime change. Unlike conventional court-packing strategies, this approach can be implemented in ways that are not merely consistent with the requirements of Article III, but that actually exploit those very requirements for even greater effect. Specific implementation mechanisms discussed in this Article include the creation of a new intermediate appellate court with the ability to select its own members; the introduction of procedural rules that would effectively restrict the Supreme Court's appellate docket; and a comprehensive overhaul of the law clerk system that would forge the clerks into a collective body, establish their independence from the judges whom they nominally serve, and subject them to a combination of bureaucratic supervision and oversight by the legal academy.
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Gregory Huber, Seth Hill & Gabriel Lenz
Yale Working Paper, September 2011
Abstract:
Are citizens competent assessors of incumbent performance? Although observational studies cast doubt on their retrospective abilities, inferences from these studies are limited by the complexity of the real world, making it difficult to know why these shortcoming arise. In this paper, we show that biases in retrospective evaluation occur even in the simplified setting of experimental games. In three experiments, our participants (1) overweighted recent relative to overall incumbent performance when made aware of an election closer rather than more distant from that event, (2) allowed an unrelated lottery that affected their welfare to influence their choices, and (3) were influenced by rhetoric to give more weight to recent rather than overall incumbent performance. These biases were apparent even though we provided information, reinforced with a monetary incentive, that weighting all performance equally was preferable. These findings suggest key limitations in voters' abilities to effectively implement a retrospective decision rule.
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Hearing Campaign Appeals: The Accountability Implications of Presidential Campaign Tone
Michele Claibourn
Political Communication, Winter 2012, Pages 64-85
Abstract:
Citizen understanding of candidate priorities is highly consequential for both elections and postelection accountability and is especially key to the office of the presidency. I examine the impact of campaign advertising tone on citizen understanding of candidate agendas in the context of the 2000 presidential election. Merging data on political ads from the Wisconsin Advertising Project with individual survey data, I test whether citizens are more likely to accurately hear a positive campaign theme. The analysis provides empirical support for this benefit of positivity.
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Henning Finseraas
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, Winter 2012, Pages 95-108
Abstract:
This article examines the importance of retrospective pocketbook voting, i.e. that voters reward an incumbent party for an improvement in their own economic situation, in the Norwegian 2005 general election. The article utilizes a dataset with extensive tax register information on income and tax payments in 2004 and 2005, which makes it possible to examine how changes in tax burdens affect the probability of voting for an incumbent party. The results show that a reduced tax burden is not significantly correlated with vote choice, a finding that questions the reward/punishment logic of retrospective pocketbook voting. The article does, however, find some evidence of retrospective sociotropic voting, as the county-level unemployment rate is significantly correlated with vote choice.
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Smith (and Jones) Go to Washington: Democracy and Vice-Presidential Selection
Joseph Uscinski
PS: Political Science & Politics, January 2012, Pages 58-66
Abstract:
The American vice president's most notable constitutional function is that of succession: if the president unexpectedly leaves office, the vice president becomes president. The process of selecting vice-presidential running mates has fallen into fewer hands over time, moving from the electorate, to party bosses and delegates, to a single person: the presidential candidate. The selection process presents challenges for democratic governance: electoral considerations may provide presidential candidates with incentive to choose vice-presidential running mates who differ from themselves politically. In cases of succession, this can lead to undemocratic outcomes and unstable policy.
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The Influence of Magna Carta in Limiting Executive Power in the War on Terror
Eric Kasper
Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2011, Pages 547-578
Abstract:
Eric T. Kasper examines the use of Magna Carta by U.S. federal courts in enemy combatant cases. He traces the history of due process, jury trial, and habeas corpus rights within Magna Carta as well as subsequent legal documents and rulings in England and America. He concludes that Magna Carta is properly used by the federal courts as persuasive authority to limit executive power in the war on terror.
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Stefanie Lindquist & Pamela Corley
Journal of Legal Studies, June 2011, Pages 467-502
Abstract:
The Supreme Court's decision to invalidate a legislative enactment involves both the choice to strike as well as the choice whether to invalidate the statute on its face or as applied. Both choices implicate the possibility of counteraction by the legislature. In this paper, we evaluate the justices' choices to invalidate a state or federal enactment on its face or as applied and find that the justices are responsive to congressional preferences concerning the substance of the legal challenge at both stages of judicial review. Other factors systematically affect the justices' decisions as well, including the legal basis for the challenge, the statutory scope of the constitutional challenge, the president (through the solicitor general), and interest groups' amicus filings. These findings suggest that the Court's exercise of judicial review is significantly influenced by Congress and by other contextual, legal, and political factors, both as to the choice to strike as well as to the method of constitutional enforcement.
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Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures
Toke Aidt & Julia Shvets
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study the effect of electoral incentives on the allocation of public services across legislative districts. We develop a model in which elections encourage legislators to cater to parochial interests and thus aggravate the common pool problem. Using unique data from seven US states, we study how the amount of funding that a legislator channels to his district changes when he faces a term limit. We find that legislators bring less pork to their district when they cannot seek re-election. Consistent with the Law of 1/N, this last term reduction in funding is smaller in states with many legislative districts.
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Public Approval of U.S. State Legislatures
Lilliard Richardson, David Konisky & Jeffrey Milyo
Legislative Studies Quarterly, February 2012, Pages 99-116
Abstract:
The determinants of public approval for state legislatures have not received much attention, but one important finding is that more professionalized legislatures experience lower levels of public support. We argue that this result is an artifact of limited data and problematic model specifications. Analyzing a large national survey sample, we demonstrate that the negative relationship holds primarily for conservatives and to a lesser extent for moderates but not liberals. Additionally, we find that legislative approval in states with term limits and ballot initiatives is no different than in states without these institutions.
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Should We Venerate That Which We Cannot Love? James Madison on Constitutional Imperfection
Jeremy Bailey
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars have long pointed to James Madison's argument for constitutional veneration in Federalist No. 49 to illustrate what they see as Madison's fear of democratic politics and frequent constitutional reform. This article challenges that consensus, first, by showing that Madison said the opposite several years earlier and, second, by revisiting the historical and textual context of Federalist No. 49. It argues that even as Madison praises veneration he offers serious reasons to be wary of it.
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Policy Networks and the U.S. Congressional Efforts to Terminate Four Federal Agencies
Gordon E. Shockley
International Journal of Public Administration, February 2012, Pages 98-111
Abstract:
The article develops a partial explanation for the varying fates of four federal agencies that the U.S. Congress targeted for elimination in the 1980s or 1990s: the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Congress successfully eliminated the CAB, ICC, and OTA; the NEA, however, survived. The argument of the article is that a vibrant policy network surrounding an agency Congress has targeted for elimination provides resiliency to resist congressional termination efforts by weaving together the relevant institutions and organizations into a resilient policy network and generating critical political support during dire times. A model of policy network resiliency is presented and applied to congressional efforts to terminate the CAB, ICC, OTA, and NEA.
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Do Standards of Review Matter? The Case of Federal Criminal Sentencing
Joshua Fischman & Max Schanzenbach
Journal of Legal Studies, June 2011, Pages 405-437
Abstract:
We study whether changes to standards of review affect district court sentencing decisions under the U.S. sentencing guidelines. Departures from the guidelines by district judges have at times been reviewed strictly or deferentially. If review standards are constraining, then differences among judges should be larger when review is deferential. We find that Democratic appointees are more lenient than Republican appointees under deferential review, but this difference significantly narrows when review is strict. We conclude that district judges are meaningfully constrained by the prospect of appellate reversal. By contrast, judges appointed before the adoption of the guidelines are more likely to depart and issue shorter sentences, but their decisions are not significantly affected by the standard of review. We suggest that the constraining effect of appellate review varies with a judge's respect for the underlying legal regime.
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Political institutions, voter turnout, and policy outcomes
Eileen Fumagalli & Gaia Narciso
European Journal of Political Economy, June 2012, Pages 162-173
Abstract:
This paper tests whether constitutions directly affect economic outcomes. By introducing citizens' political participation as the driving force connecting institutions to policy outcomes, we empirically show that voter turnout is the channel through which forms of government affect economic policies. We provide evidence of the existence of two relationships. First, presidential regimes appear to be associated with lower voter participation in national elections. Second, higher voter participation induces an increase in government expenditure, total revenues, welfare state spending, and budget deficit. We conclude that forms of government affect policy outcomes only through voter turnout.
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Kai Jäger
Democratization, forthcoming
Abstract:
In 2006, Bangkok's middle-class residents overwhelmingly supported the military coup that displaced the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra. Survey research shows that opponents of Thaksin had a stronger commitment to liberal democracy and possibly to royalist values while rural voters supported Thaksin because he fulfilled their social demands. Opposition to Thaksin was not motivated by economic interests, but rather, there is some evidence that urban middle- and upper-class voters disliked Thaksin because they heard negative reporting about him, which were less available in the countryside. These findings are compatible with a new theory of democratic consolidation, in which the upper classes have the means that would enable and encourage them to pay sufficient attention to politics to discover that what they viewed as ‘good government' was violated by the ruling party, which could have led to demands for more democracy historically. More recently, however, in Thailand and perhaps other instances in Southeast Asia and Latin America, those with the money and leisure to follow politics closely have heard reports about the ‘bad government' of populist, democratically elected leaders, and thus have turned against them.
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Attacks on Civilians in Civil War: Targeting the Achilles Heel of Democratic Governments
Lisa Hultman
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has indicated that democracy decreases the risk of armed conflict, while increasing the likelihood of terrorist attacks, but we know little about the effect of democracy on violence against civilians in ongoing civil conflicts. This study seeks to fill this empirical gap in the research on democracy and political violence, by examining all rebel groups involved in an armed conflict 1989-2004. Using different measures of democracy, the results demonstrate that rebels target more civilians when facing a democratic (or semi-democratic) government. Democracies are perceived as particularly vulnerable to attacks on the population, since civilians can hold the government accountable for failures to provide security, and this provides incentives for rebels to target civilians. At the same time, the openness of democratic societies provides opportunities for carrying out violent attacks. Thus, the strength of democracy - its accountability and openness - can become an Achilles heel during an internal armed conflict.
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Some Dared Call It Torture: Cultural Resonance, Abu Ghraib, and a Selectively Echoing Press
Charles Rowling, Timothy Jones & Penelope Sheets
Journal of Communication, December 2011, Pages 1043-1061
Abstract:
This study draws upon research on "indexing" and "cascading activation" to explore U.S. political and news discourse surrounding the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Specifically, we systematically analyze White House, military, congressional, and news messages. In so doing, we incorporate scholarship on social identity theory to suggest why news media challenge certain White House frames but uncritically echo others. Our data demonstrate that White House frames were consistently challenged by Democrats in the opposing party, but that these competing congressional messages were largely absent in news coverage. These results challenge previous research on news coverage of Abu Ghraib. We discuss how these patterns align with and expand Entman's cascading activation model of press-state relations, and consider the implications for future scholarship.
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Subconscious Gatekeeping: The Effect of Death Thoughts on Bias Toward Outgroups in News Writing
David Cuillier
Mass Communication and Society, January/February 2012, Pages 4-24
Abstract:
This study contributes to gatekeeping theory by examining the importance of individual-level subconscious psychological factors in news story fact selection, specifically whether the thought of death increases biased writing toward outgroups. An experiment (N = 79), based on terror management theory from social psychology, indicated that college journalists primed to think about death injected into their news stories 66% more negative facts toward a rival university than those in a control condition. Implications for mass media research, particularly individual-level psychological factors overriding routine gatekeeping forces, are discussed.
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Club-in-the-Club: Reform under Unanimity
Erik Berglöf et al.
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In many organizations, decisions are taken by unanimity giving each member veto power. We analyze a model of an organization in which members with heterogenous productivity privately contribute to a common good. Under unanimity, the least efficient member imposes her preferred effort choice on the entire organization. The threat of forming an "inner organization" can undermine the veto power of the less efficient members and coerce them to exert more effort. We also identify the conditions under which the threat of forming an inner organization is executed. Finally, we show that majority rules effectively prevent the emergence of inner organizations.