Political Research Quarterly recent issues

A Clash of Civilizations? The Influence of Religion on Public Opinion of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Baumgartner, J. C, Francia, P. L., Morris, J. S. — 2008-05-06

The authors argue in this study that religious beliefs play a significant role in predicting American public opinion on foreign policy issues in the Middle East. Their findings reveal that Evangelical Christians have remained strong supporters of a hawkish foreign policy toward the Middle East, even as overall public support for the Iraq War declines. They also find that Evangelicals are among the strongest supporters of Israel and hold more negative views of Islam than others. These results reinforce the growing importance of the "faith factor" in public opinion and American politics as a whole.

God's Party? Race, Religion, and Partisanship over Time

McDaniel, E. L., Ellison, C. G. — 2008-05-06

The Republican Party has aggressively attempted to recruit black and Latino Evangelicals; however, the success of these efforts has been questioned. The authors argue that the GOP's diminished success in recruiting these groups, compared to Anglos, is based on differing religious worldviews. Using data that allow them to track partisanship over two decades, the authors examine how religious conservatism has shaped Anglo, Latino, and black partisanship. They find that the GOP has been most successful in recruiting Anglos, followed by Latinos. Blacks appear to be unaffected. In addition, they find support for their underlying assumption of differing religious worldviews among the racial/ethnic groups.

Belonging, Behaving, and Believing: Assessing the Role of Religion on Presidential Approval

Olson, L. R., Warber, A. L. — 2008-05-06

We operationalize three dimensions of religion—religious affiliation, religious commitment, and religious belief—to offer a detailed analysis of how religion affects presidential approval ratings. Using data from the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 American National Election Studies, we demonstrate that operationalizing religion as a rudimentary Protestant—Catholic affiliation dichotomy masks its influence on presidential approval. We find that religious affiliation, even when measured more precisely than with a Protestant—Catholic dichotomy, contributes less to models of presidential approval than do measures of religious commitment and (especially) orthodoxy of religious belief.

From the Gap to the Chasm: Gender and Participation among Non-Hispanic Whites and Mexican Americans

Kam, C. D., Zechmeister, E. J., Wilking, J. R. — 2008-05-06

This article focuses on gender and ethnic inequalities in political participation across non-Hispanic whites and Mexican Americans. Using a mainstream model of participation, the authors find that differences in the levels of resources, motivations, and opportunities effectively account for gender gaps within the two populations. However, this mainstream model leaves largely unexplained the chasm in participation across non-Hispanic whites and Mexican Americans. The authors incorporate socialization experiences specific to Mexican Americans to identify the roots of participatory inequality across these groups. Differences in linguistic, educational, and general assimilation account for participatory differences across Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites. Equalizing these factors closes the chasm in participation.

Gender, Race, and Intersectionality on the Federal Appellate Bench

Collins, T., Moyer, L. — 2008-05-06

While theoretical justifications predict that a judge's gender and race may influence judicial decisions, empirical support for these arguments has been mixed. However, recent increases in judicial diversity necessitate a reexamination of these earlier studies. Rather than examining individual judges on a single characteristic, such as gender or race alone, this research note argues that the intersection of individual characteristics may provide an alternative approach for evaluating the effects of diversity on the federal appellate bench. The results of cohort models examining the joint effects of race and gender suggest that minority female judges are more likely to support criminal defendants' claims when compared to their colleagues on the bench, even after controlling for other important factors. This suggests that our understanding of judicial behaviors may be assisted by the inclusion of how individual characteristics overlap rather than examining those characteristics alone.

Sex Differences in the Acceptability of Discrimination

Kuran, T., McCaffery, E. J. — 2008-05-06

A large telephone survey conducted after the attacks of September 11, 2001, suggests that the willingness to tolerate discrimination varies significantly across domains, with a very high tolerance of discrimination against poorly educated immigrants and a strikingly low tolerance of discrimination against the genetically disadvantaged. Regardless of domain, tolerance is greater among men than among women. A survey conducted simultaneously over the World Wide Web, using volunteer panels, replicated the phone survey results and revealed an even larger sex gap. This finding suggests that a social desirability bias leads women to overstate and men to understate their tolerance of discrimination in public.

Press Coverage of Mayoral Candidates: The Role of Gender in News Reporting and Campaign Issue Speech

Atkeson, L. R., Krebs, T. B. — 2008-05-06

Some research on gender bias in news coverage of political campaigns indicates that the media portray male and female candidates differently. Research to date, however, has focused only on elections to national or statewide offices, where confounding variables such as party, incumbency, and competitiveness are present. The authors resolve this problem by focusing their analysis of media campaign coverage on nonpartisan, open-seat, and competitive mayoral races. The authors' content analysis of press coverage in six mayoral elections suggests that press coverage is not biased in favor of male candidates. The authors, however, find that the presence of a woman on the ballot expands the range of issue coverage in local campaigns in ways favorable to perceived strengths of female candidates.

Political Attitudes and Ideologies of Multiracial Americans: The Implications of Mixed Race in the United States

Masuoka, N. — 2008-05-06

A contemporary rise in multiracial self-identification provokes a number of questions about the significance that this racial identity may hold for American politics. This research focuses on the political attitudes of multiracial Americans to determine how multiracial identities may influence individual public opinion. I offer a test of three competing theoretical models of multiracial political attitude formation: Classic Assimilation, Minority Trumping, and New Identity Formation. This research finds that, generally, multiracial individuals who self-identify as such develop political opinions that parallel with their minority counterparts.

The Political Resocialization of Immigrants: Resistance or Lifelong Learning?

White, S., Nevitte, N., Blais, A., Gidengil, E., Fournier, P. — 2008-05-06

Theories of political socialization contain competing expectations about immigrants' potential for political resocialization. Premigration beliefs and actions may be resistant to change, exposure to the new political system may facilitate adaptation, or immigrants may find ways to transfer beliefs and behaviors from one political system to another. This analysis empirically tests these three alternative theories of resocialization. The results indicate that both transfer and exposure matter; there is little evidence that premigration beliefs and actions are resistant to change. Moreover, how immigrants adapt depends on which orientation or behavior is being considered and on what kind of political environments migrants come from.

Improving Causal Inference: Strengths and Limitations of Natural Experiments

Dunning, T. — 2008-05-06

Social scientists increasingly exploit natural experiments in their research. This article surveys recent applications in political science, with the goal of illustrating the inferential advantages provided by this research design. When treatment assignment is less than "as if" random, studies may be something less than natural experiments, and familiar threats to valid causal inference in observational settings can arise. The author proposes a continuum of plausibility for natural experiments, defined by the extent to which treatment assignment is plausibly "as if" random, and locates several leading studies along this continuum.

Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options

Seawright, J., Gerring, J. — 2008-05-06

How can scholars select cases from a large universe for in-depth case study analysis? Random sampling is not typically a viable approach when the total number of cases to be selected is small. Hence attention to purposive modes of sampling is needed. Yet, while the existing qualitative literature on case selection offers a wide range of suggestions for case selection, most techniques discussed require in-depth familiarity of each case. Seven case selection procedures are considered, each of which facilitates a different strategy for within-case analysis. The case selection procedures considered focus on typical, diverse, extreme, deviant, influential, most similar, and most different cases. For each case selection procedure, quantitative approaches are discussed that meet the goals of the approach, while still requiring information that can reasonably be gathered for a large number of cases.

The Effects of Measurement and Methods Decisions on Committee Preference Outlier Results

Sprague, M. — 2008-05-06

Studies of outlying committee preferences have been conducted with different preference measures and methodological approaches and have generated conflicting results. To assess the effects of these study design differences, I use multiple methodological approaches to examine committee-floor differences with jurisdiction-specific interest group data during a longer time period than earlier studies. After comparing results across methods, I compare them to past findings using the same method but different preference measures. I find that differences in preference measures largely explain previous contradictory results. Additionally, outlying tendencies exist among all committees expected to be outliers under conditional claims of the distributive theory.

Justice and the Environment in Nussbaum's "Capabilities Approach": Why Sustainable Ecological Capacity Is a Meta-Capability

Holland, B. — 2008-05-06

What principles should guide how society distributes environmental benefits and burdens? Like many liberal theories of justice, Martha Nussbaum's "capabilities approach" does not adequately address this question. The author argues that the capabilities approach should be extended to account for the environment's instrumental value to human capabilities. Given this instrumental value, protecting capabilities requires establishing certain environmental conditions as an independent "meta-capability." When combined with Nussbaum's nonprocedural method of political justification, this extension provides the basis for adjudicating environmental justice claims. The author applies this extended capabilities approach to assess the distribution of benefits and burdens associated with climate change.

State Policy Innovation in Perspective: Courts, Legislatures, and Education Finance Reform

Roch, C. H., Howard, R. M. — 2008-05-06

Why and when courts will change policy has been the subject of significant scholarly attention, but there has been little effort to integrate this research within the existing research of determinants of state legislative policy change. In this article, the authors incorporate both of these research areas to answer the question of whether policy change will occur through the legislature or through the courts, examining the important issue of education finance reform. To understand and predict this change, the authors characterize the state policy environment as consisting of political, legal, and strategic factors. The authors find that a combination of political and strategic factors influences legislatures and the courts, but that law matters greatly to the courts, particularly state constitutional education clauses. The authors also find that institutional structure influences the degree to which politics matters to the courts.

Allocating Lobbying Resources between Collective and Private Rents

Godwin, R. K., Lopez, E. J., Seldon, B. J. — 2008-05-06

How do firms allocate their lobbying resources among their political goals? The authors approach this question using a game-theoretic model that integrates three concepts from the lobbying literature: the distinction between private and collective rents, the competition for a rent, and the impacts of political institutions. The model indicates how competition and political institutions affect lobbying expenditures and expected net returns for private and collective lobbying. The outcomes predicted differ with those of past formal models and produce the counterintuitive expectation that competition typically reduces expenditures. The authors test the model's predictions by examining the lobbying decisions of sixty-two firms.

Announcements: Western Political Science Association

2008-05-06

Sixty Years of Political Science at Political Research Quarterly

Mazur, A. G., Clayton, C. W. — 2008-02-12

On the Origins of the Western Political Science Association and PRQ

Hrebenar, R. J. — 2008-02-12

Charles Adrian and the Study of Nonpartisan Elections

Wright, G. C. — 2008-02-12

The Progressives believed that political parties, especially those in the cities during the first part of the past century, undermined the quality of democracy in the country. The patronage that held the parties together led to corruption and inefficiencies. While some of the reforms from the Progressive Era, such as the secret ballot and direct primary, have been adopted almost universally, Charles Adrian wrote about one, the nonpartisan ballot, that was adopted in many places, but not all. More than three fourths of municipal elections and about half of all U.S. elections use the nonpartisan ballot. This constitutes a huge quasi-experiment in the impact of political parties on governance and representation. As most political scientists agree that competitive political parties are necessary for healthy representative democracy and the centrality of political parties for voter decision making, this experiment is interesting and potentially significant for understanding the role parties play in elections and policy making.

The "Kling Thesis": An Early Effort at Systematic Comparative Politics

Seligson, M. A. — 2008-02-12

The Kennedy Experiment Revisited

Etzioni, A. — 2008-02-12

Many of the critical issues and conflicts in international relations today bear a significant resemblance to the geopolitical circumstances that led to the development of a theorem the author published in these pages forty years ago. This theorem points toward a course of (1) unilateral, (2) reciprocal, and (3) symbolic actions between mutually mistrustful agents as the best road to travel toward the possibility of "normal" negotiations. Looking back at the events of 1962—1963, the author finds (as he found in his article forty years ago) that the unilateral-reciprocal approach led to reduced tensions between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Although his theorem has received the kind of varied and relevant observations those who formulate theorems aspire to, the author regrets that there have been very few attempts to apply this theorem to subsequent international conflicts as a tension-reducing tactic.

Commentary on Emmy E. Werner's 1968 Article, "Women in the State Legislatures"

Carroll, S. J. — 2008-02-12

This commentary examines the contributions of Emmy W. Werner's classic article to the study of women and politics and to knowledge about women in state legislatures, placing the article in the context of its time and highlighting its continuing relevance.

Commentary on "Recruitment of Women to Public Office: A Discriminant Analysis," 1978

Welch, S. — 2008-02-12

Growing out of an interest in why there were not more women in state legislatures, the author's 1978 article tested the explanation that a large part of the problem was the shortage of women in the eligibility pool. The article showed that more than one-third of the discrepancy between the small proportion of women then in the legislature and the 53 percent expected if legislatures reflected the population proportions of women could be accounted for by characteristics of the women's candidate pool, including occupation, education, and membership in groups. Since 1978, we know more about impediments to women's legislative membership, including the effects of incumbency, partisanship, and district characteristics. The article concludes with some suggestions for future research: tracking longitudinal trends in predictors of women's legislative membership, disentangling the factors that facilitate women's election, further examination of partisan factors relating to women's success, and a closer look at minority women.

Commentary on Welch's Early and Important Work Separating Out the Effects of Constituency and Campaign Contributions on Congressional Roll-Call Votes

Magleby, D. B. — 2008-02-12

The Importance of Being First

Matland, R. E. — 2008-02-12

Reflections on Carol F. Goss's 1972 Article, "Military Committee Membership and Defense-related Benefits in the House of Representatives"

LeLoup, L. T. — 2008-02-12

Political science in the 1970s was influenced by the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Many scholars were concerned with the failure to end the war and the rising levels of defense spending in the face of pressing domestic needs. Only a dozen years earlier, President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the excessive power of the "military—industrial complex." As the Vietnam War was winding down, many Americans had a lingering suspicion that military spending was as much about economic benefits at home as the assertion of American power abroad. Also by the early 1970s, studies of Congress were changing theoretically and methodologically. By the 1970s, congressional scholars were using more sophisticated quantitative methods and beginning to use instrumental rationality as a basis of theory. All of these trends are reflected in the article published by Carol F. Goss in June of 1972 titled, "Military Committee Membership and Defense-related Benefits in the House of Representatives."

Commentary on the 1991 Thomas and Welch Article "The Impact of Gender on Activities and Priorities of State Legislators"--

Thomas, S., Welch, S. — 2008-02-12

Commentary on "Attitudes, Opportunities and Incentives: A Field Essay on Political Participation"

Leighley, J. E. — 2008-02-12

Commentary on "Citizens by Choice, Voters by Necessity: Patterns in Political Mobilization by Naturalized Latinos"

Pantoja, A. D., Ramirez, R., Segura, G. M. — 2008-02-12

Commentary on "Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas"

Giles, M. W. — 2008-02-12

Economic Common Sense and the Depoliticization of the Economic

Swanson, J. — 2008-02-12

This article theorizes and begins to explore the extent to which academic and nonacademic discourses contribute to the reproduction and legitimacy of the economic status quo. The author argues that economic practices in the United States are often depoliticized in at least two different ways: They are naturalized or essentialized conceptually, and political control over them is limited. Drawing on antiessentialist Marxian economic theory, Gramsci's theory of hegemony, and poststructuralist theory, the author constructs a framework for conceptualizing economic practices in a more politicized manner. The author also provides some specific examples of depoliticized discourses and a few examples of more politicized discourses.

Ambition, Gender, and the Judiciary

Williams, M. S. — 2008-02-12

With the work of scholars like Fox and Lawless (2004) and Sanbonmatsu (2002), the discipline of political science began to understand individual-level explanations for women's representation in state legislatures. Such analysis, however, has not been extended to other branches of government, including state judiciaries. To examine individual-level explanations for representation on state courts, this article examines the results of a survey of Texas attorneys. The results of this research suggest that running for the judiciary is somewhat different from running for other office, and future research needs to explore the variation in ambition across types of offices.

Is There a "Gender Affinity Effect" in American Politics?: Information, Affect, and Candidate Sex in U.S. House Elections

Dolan, K. — 2008-02-12

A common assumption people make about American elections is that women voters will be the most likely source of support for female candidates, a phenomenon referred to as the "gender affinity effect." Using National Election Study (NES) data from 1990 to 2000, this project expands our understanding of forms that this affinity effect can take by examining two underutilized measures of reactions to candidates: information and candidate affect scores. The author also considers the impact of political party on women's and men's attitudes toward female candidates and examines whether any gender affinity effect in reactions to female candidates is related to people's voting decisions.

Life, Pocketbook, or Culture: The Role of Perceived Security Threats in Promoting Exclusionist Political Attitudes toward Minorities in Israel

Canetti-Nisim, D., Ariely, G., Halperin, E. — 2008-02-12

This article tests the role played by different sources of threat perception in shaping exclusionist political attitudes of the majority toward two distinct minority groups in Israel: non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Palestinian citizens of Israel. The authors distinguish between the impact of security, economic, and symbolic threats on exclusionist political attitudes. A structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that regardless of the different levels of each threat posed by a minority group, a perceived security threat is a key predictor of exclusionist political attitudes toward different minority groups.

International Relations, Domestic Politics, and Asylum Admissions in the United States

Salehyan, I., Rosenblum, M. R. — 2008-02-12

What explains variation in U.S. asylum approval rates across countries of origin? Previous research has found that humanitarian factors and diplomatic relations play an important role in shaping asylum decisions. This article examines the impact of domestic politics. The authors find that media and congressional attention play an important role in influencing how the executive branch makes enforcement decisions. Popular attention to asylum increases the importance of humanitarian concerns relative to instrumental factors. The effect of congressional attention depends on whether asylum is seen as an enforcement or humanitarian issue. The importance of these factors has also changed over time.

The Effects of Redistricting on Voting Behavior in Incumbent U.S. House Elections, 1992--1994

McKee, S. C. — 2008-02-12

Although numerous studies have assessed the influence of the 1990s redistricting on U.S. House elections, without exception, these published studies rely on aggregate data (e.g., district-level data). Likewise, the author uses aggregate data, but he also departs from previous studies by using survey data to assess the influence of redistricting on vote choice in the 1992 and 1994 U.S. House elections. Unlike past studies, with the use of survey data, the author makes more definitive statements regarding the effects of redistricting on vote choice. The 1990s redistricting was an important factor contributing to the Republicans' House majority because voters drawn into districts with a different incumbent standing for reelection were much more likely to vote Republican.

Does the Messenger Matter? Candidate-Media Agenda Convergence and Its Effects on Voter Issue Salience

Hayes, D. — 2008-02-12

Though research has shown that candidates and the media can influence the importance voters ascribe to political issues, little work has sought to test the interactive agenda-setting effects of each—in particular, to determine whether the ability of candidates to set the public's agenda depends on the media's willingness to reflect their issue emphases. Using an experiment conducted during the early stages of the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election, the author shows that candidate attempts to influence voter issue salience are most effective when the media focus on the same topics. The findings suggest the value for candidates of enlisting the news media in helping to pass their messages along and serve as a point of departure for more work on the influence of candidate-media agenda convergence.

The Two Faces of Government Spending

Goren, P. — 2008-02-12

Scholars have known for some time that attitudes toward federal spending on welfare are shaped by racial antipathies. Are attitudes toward spending on nonwelfare social programs similarly grounded? This article explores the dimensionality of spending attitudes and the extent to which they are rooted in stereotypical beliefs about blacks. Analysis of data from the 1992, 1996, and 2000 National Election Studies demonstrates that whites' attitudes toward welfare spending and social spending are structured in two-dimensional terms and that stereotypical beliefs about the work ethic of blacks systematically constrain their welfare attitudes and do not affect attitudes toward other social programs.

Comment: The Dimensionality of Public Attitudes toward Government Spending

Jacoby, W. G. — 2008-02-12

In "The Two Faces of Government Spending," Paul Goren applies a confirmatory factor model to data from the Center for Political Studies (CPS) National Election Studies (NES) to show that public attitudes toward policy spending are two dimensional. Here, I show that a unidimensional model, derived from nonparametric item response theory, can be used to represent the same data. This latter model provides additional insights about specific spending responses and also produces results that are equivalent to the two-dimensional model with respect to the impact of racial stereotypes. Therefore, by scientific standards, the unidimensional representation of public opinion toward government spending seems to be preferable.

Dimensionality Redux: A Rejoinder to Professor Jacoby

Goren, P. — 2008-02-12

Western Political Science Association 2008 Meeting

2008-02-12

Commitments, Transnational Interests, and Congress: Who Joins the Congressional Human Rights Caucus?

McCormick, J. M., Mitchell, N. J. — 2007-11-27

The authors seek to explain the membership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus (CHRC). Focusing on human rights violations abroad, the Caucus offers few incentives for representatives to join this organization, yet it consistently has a large membership. Drawing on theoretical literature on Congress and interest groups, the authors argue that members' policy motivation and the subsidizing role of national and transnational human rights interest groups account for the decision to join. Documentary and interview evidence for House members in the 107th and 108th Congresses support these arguments. The results have substantive and theoretical implications for the study of the CHRC, the interactions between members of Congress and interest groups, and the study of congressional caucuses generally.

The Speaker's Discretion: Conference Committee Appointments in the 97th through 106th Congresses

Lazarus, J., Monroe, N. W. — 2007-11-27

House rules allow the Speaker to choose any conferees he wishes, suggesting he might use conference delegations to advance partisan goals. In practice, the Speaker nearly always selects members of the bill's jurisdictional committee(s). The authors propose a theory of conferee selection that endogenizes both partisan goals and committee participation. They argue that the Speaker's incentives lead him to appoint committee members, but he anticipates cases in which they would produce an outcome unfavorable to the majority party. In these cases, the Speaker appoints other conferees in addition to those from the jurisdictional committee, thereby "packing" the delegation in favor of the majority party position. The authors derive and test hypotheses regarding when the Speaker packs conference delegations, and what delegations look like when packed. The tests support the theory.

Party Loyalty and Legislative Success: Are Loyal Majority Party Members More Successful in the U.S. House of Representatives?

Hasecke, E. B., Mycoff, J. D. — 2007-11-27

Majority Party leaders are hypothesized, through their control of the legislative schedule in the House of Representatives, to use legislative success as a selective incentive to encourage majority party members to contribute to the collective goals of the party. Members can demonstrate party loyalty through floor voting and financial contributions to the party's re-election efforts. This article examines legislative success from the 103rd through 107th Congresses. The evidence shows that both demonstrations of party loyalty have a significant effect on legislative success.

Goal Salience and the 2006 Race for House Majority Leader

Green, M. N., Harris, D. B. — 2007-11-27

In intraparty congressional leadership races, the characteristics of candidates and the nature of their campaigns increase the salience of particular legislator goals and, in doing so, influence legislators' support of particular leadership candidates. Using multinomial logit regression analysis, the authors test this "goal salience" theory to determine what factors predict individual legislators' commitments to candidates in the 2006 House Republican majority leader's race. Notably, among other factors, the level of campaign donations made to Republican House members had a positive and statistically significant relationship with the choice of specific candidates.

Promoting the President's Foreign Policy Agenda: Presidential Use of Executive Agreements as Policy Vehicles

Caruson, K., Farrar-Myers, V. A. — 2007-11-27

Executive agreements represent a powerful tool for pursuing commitments with other nations across the spectrum of foreign policy issues. In particular, the executive agreement gives presidents the flexibility to act independently of Congress. The authors' research demonstrates, quantitatively, how presidents use international executive agreements to advance their foreign policy priorities. The authors evaluate the foreign policy agendas of the Carter, Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, and first Clinton administrations and test whether the executive agreements signed during each administration serve to further the individual foreign policy goals of each president. The authors find that presidents are more likely to devote personal attention to an agreement that furthers a specific policy priority, and they identify greater agreement activity in areas that correspond to presidential initiatives.

Adding Recess Appointments to the President's "Tool Chest" of Unilateral Powers

Black, R. C., Madonna, A. J., Owens, R. J., Lynch, M. S. — 2007-11-27

In the struggle to control the federal bureaucracy, presidents have an overlooked but powerful tool: the recess appointment. By making recess appointments, presidents can fill vacancies without the advice and consent of the Senate. The authors delineate three conditions that define presidential unilateral powers and demonstrate how recess appointments fit within that paradigm. Presidents, the authors argue, should be more likely to make recess appointments to important policy-making positions, namely, major independent agencies. The authors compile a data set of every civilian nomination and recess appointment between 1987 and 2004. After controlling for other factors, the authors find strong support for their theory.

Press Coverage of Legislative Appeals by the President

Barrett, A. W. — 2007-11-27

By and large, unless the president's public appeals for legislation are reported by the national media, only his immediate audiences will hear them. This article examines 541 presidential legislative appeals from the Reagan and first Bush administrations to determine how often such appeals are reported and which ones generate press coverage. It is discovered that the majority of appeals by the president are not reported. This finding helps explain why presidents struggle to build public support for their proposals, as the public cannot be persuaded by messages it never hears. Presidents themselves appear largely responsible for this limited coverage, as most of their appeals are quite short and not the central focus of their public remarks. However, appeals that meet the press's criteria for newsworthiness are reported more often, particularly those that are most significant to the president and that easily fit the narrative style of reporting favored by journalists.

"We the People": The "Modern" Rhetorical Popular Address of the Presidents during the Founding Period

Lee Teten, R. — 2007-11-27

This article examines the usage of popular address rhetoric within all the State of the Union Addresses to determine whether presidents have consistently used this rhetorical tool, or whether the introduction of going public is indeed a "modern" development that was little used in the rhetorical past of the presidency. By looking at instances in which the president identifies himself with the people, Congress, or as president, the author finds that many formerly "traditional" presidents exhibit "modern" tendencies, which suggests inconsistencies with the "traditional/modern" divide that is a commonly utilized paradigm in presidential study.

Agency Design and Postlegislative Influence over the Bureaucracy

MacDonald, J. A. — 2007-11-27

Extending transaction cost theories of agency design, the author develops a theory about why congressional coalitions vary the difficulty of influencing the policy decisions of bureaucratic agencies. He assesses the theory by examining the transaction costs that congressional coalitions imposed on actors seeking to influence agency decisions in landmark laws enacted by the U.S. Congress from 1947 to 1992. The findings stress the need to consider policy disagreement between congressional coalitions and both congressional committees and the president, as well as policy agreement between committees and the president, in understanding how difficult congressional coalitions make it to influence agencies' policy decisions.

Checks, Balances, and the Cost of Regulation: Evidence from the American States

Daley, D. M., Haider-Markel, D. P., Whitford, A. B. — 2007-11-27

This article examines the relationship between political veto points, credible commitments, and regulatory compliance costs. Its central purpose is to assess whether different types of political veto points credibly constrain regulatory change and thus lower compliance costs. The authors conceptualize veto points broadly, including legislative oversight, gubernatorial powers, and direct democracy. We analyze state-level environmental compliance costs from 1988 to 1994 as a function of the structure of state political institutions and state political and economic characteristics. The results suggest that a key veto point, the authority for legislators to review bureaucratic behavior, consistently reduces compliance costs.

Explaining Public Confidence in the Branches of State Government

Kelleher, C. A., Wolak, J. — 2007-11-27

What explains public confidence in the leadership of government institutions at the state level? The authors explore how political processes, the nature of representation, and economic and policy performance in the states translate into citizen confidence in state institutions. Using a multilevel modeling approach, the authors consider the sources of public confidence in the people who lead state legislatures, offices of the governor, and state courts. While the explanations for government confidence at the state level resemble, in part, those of the national government, the authors also observe notable differences, with each branch of state government drawing on distinct sources of public satisfaction.

Ideological Ambiguity and Split Ticket Voting

Karp, J. A., Garland, M. W. — 2007-11-27

Recent research on congressional elections suggests that voters are more likely to split their votes in ideologically extreme districts. The authors suggest that in this type of context, uncertainty about candidate position rather than clarity explains the occurrence of ticket splitting. Using data from a rolling cross-section campaign survey where two incumbents competed in a predominately conservative district, the authors find that a substantial proportion of voters are likely to have difficulty identifying which congressional candidate was more conservative. Moreover, media exposure contributed to ambiguity over candidate position, which increases the likelihood of ticket splitting.

Enraged or Engaged? Preferences for Direct Citizen Participation in Affluent Democracies

Bowler, S., Donovan, T., Karp, J. A. — 2007-08-27

Widespread approval of direct democracy has been attributed to politically engaged citizens who seek more opportunities to participate in politics. Others suggest that people prefer a limited role in politics, but cynicism with representation leads them to embrace direct democracy. The authors analyze opinion in sixteen affluent democracies to test these explanations. The authors find expectations of "more participation" were motivated by distrust of government and the belief that a citizen had a duty to keep a watch on government. Distrust, however, had an inverse relationship with approval of referendums in several nations. Support for referendums was greater among people who expect more opportunities to participate in public decisions and from people who were interested in politics, trusted government, and were satisfied with how democracy was working. Enthusiasm for direct democracy may reflect what people find lacking in representative democracy as much as it reflects interest in a more participatory version of democracy.

Does Democratization Depress Participation? Voter Turnout in the Latin American and Eastern European Transitional Democracies

Kostadinova, T., Power, T. J. — 2007-08-27

Scholars and policy makers have advanced conflicting hypotheses about the dynamics of voter participation in nascent democratic regimes. The authors advance the research program by examining 108 parliamentary elections in postauthoritarian Latin America and post-Communist Europe from 1978 through 2003. Institutional, political, and demographic variables shape turnout in new democracies, but there is also a strong temporal effect: voter turnout drops sharply after founding elections and continues to fall through the fourth electoral cycle. Moreover, after appropriate controls, rates of turnout in Eastern Europe are consistently higher than the equivalent rates for Latin America. The authors attribute these differences to historical legacies and the mode of transition to democracy.

Retrospective Economic Accountability under Authoritarianism: Evidence from China

Gang Guo, — 2007-08-27

The relationship between the turnover of government leaders and economic performance has rarely been studied in authoritarian regimes. In mainland China the reforms of the past quarter century have increased the economic accountability of local leaders. At the same time, there is some evidence that informal and idiosyncratic factors are more likely to operate at lower levels of government. An analysis of a comprehensive panel data set shows that Chinese county leaders are frequently replaced and that revenue growth increases the probability of promotion of county chief executives. Newly installed or minority nationality chief executives are less likely to be replaced.

Exposure to European Union Policies and Support for Membership in the Candidate Countries

Elgun, O., Tillman, E. R. — 2007-08-27

This article examines the relative merits of competing explanations of public support for European Union membership in thirteen Central and Eastern European candidate countries. While noneconomic factors—attitudes toward domestic politics and feelings of social identity—have a consistently strong effect, the impact of human capital is contingent on exposure to the distributive consequences of European integration. The results of an ordered logit analysis of Candidate Country Eurobarometer data are consistent with these predictions. These results suggest a revision of theories of EU support to account for the role of exposure to the consequences of integration in shaping utilitarian judgments.

The Political Economy of Nontariff Trade Barriers in Emerging Economies

Drope, J. M. — 2007-08-27

This article examines the counterpoint to recent economic reform programs: policies that potentially defy the reform process. Policy "reversal" is particularly evident in the area of trade liberalization where nations reduced tariffs while simultaneously introducing nontariff barriers (NTB), particularly the widespread antidumping (AD) measure. This research seeks to identify the determinants of these new "postliberalization" trade policies by combining dominant interest group approaches with more state-centered explanations in an examination of two vigorous NTB users, South Africa and Mexico. The results of nested probit analyses suggest that private interests dominate the process in Mexico, while both interests and the state's overall strategic development objectives shape trade policy outcomes in South Africa.

Presidents, Political Context, and Economic Accountability: Evidence from Latin America

Gelineau, F. — 2007-08-27

Using individual-level data collected in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, this article argues that electoral accountability revolves around the centralized nature of presidential regimes in the region and the relatively low level of institutionalization of party systems, which, under certain circumstances, constrain the ability of voters to hold the incumbent party responsible for past economic performance. In addition to probing the broader applicability of the economic voting models developed with reference to well-established democracies, the analysis contributes to improving our understanding of the interaction between institutional design and electoral behavior.

The Persuasive Power of Russian Courts

Baird, V. A., Javeline, D. — 2007-08-27

Given the centralization of power in contemporary Russia, can nonexecutive institutions exercise some power, especially institutions such as high courts, which are critical to establishing the rule of law? In particular, can high courts influence the Russian public through their power to persuade? Using experiments embedded in three surveys of more than 6,000 Russians each, the authors find that the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, as well as the Duma, have persuasive power but greater potential to persuade tolerant Russians to be intolerant than vice versa. The findings have powerful implications for understanding the judicial role in protecting the rights and liberties of minorities.

Experienced Advocates and Litigation Outcomes: Repeat Players in the South African Supreme Court of Appeal

Haynie, S. L., Sill, K. L. — 2007-08-27

While the facts and the attendant law are essential components of understanding litigation outcomes, extralegal factors, such as the experience of the attorney representing each party, are also significantly related. The authors assert that the capability of the attorney, as evidenced in previous litigation success, is more significant than experience alone. They test this assertion for the South African appellate court from 1970 to 2000. After controlling for the effects of a number of variables, the results suggest that the previous success of the advocate is a far better predictor of litigation outcomes than previous experience, litigant status, or court ideology.

Institutions, Interests, and Judicial Outcomes: The Politics of Federal Diversity Jurisdiction

Curry, B. — 2007-08-27

Since 1789, diversity of citizenship jurisdiction has been a staple of the American judicial system. After presenting a general theory of jurisdictional change and reviewing diversity jurisdiction's development, the author undertakes a quantitative analysis of congressional activity vis-à-vis diversity jurisdiction. That analysis provides evidence that both administrative concerns and attention to federal judicial outcomes have impacted legislative decisions concerning the scope of diversity jurisdiction. These findings also suggest that members of Congress are selective in dealing with the jurisdiction of federal courts and that approaches to jurisdictional oversight vary in response to the salience of the legal issues at hand.

The Supreme Court and Morality Policy Adoption in the American States: The Impact of Constitutional Context

Patton, D. — 2007-08-27

Morality policy studies are generally constructed around the theoretical perspective of democratic responsiveness, whereby factors such as religious affiliation of citizens, public opinion, and partisanship affect adoption. The author expands morality policy theory to include the U.S. Supreme Court. She creates a measure of the "constitutional context" state legislators are faced with when debating morality policy proposals and develops a series of hypotheses regarding its effect on morality policy adoption. She tests these hypotheses by employing an event history model of state abortion policy adoptions from 1973 to 2000. The results indicate that the constitutional context has a significant effect on abortion policy adoption; however, its effect is conditioned by the state political environment.

The Effects of Campaign Spending in State Supreme Court Elections

Bonneau, C. W. — 2007-08-27

Electoral competition has been an important subject of political science research over the past several decades. This article examines the effects of campaign spending on electoral competition in state supreme court elections. Specifically, the author addresses the question, How do campaign expenditures affect the performance of incumbents in supreme court elections? The author finds that, just like elections to Congress and state legislatures, electoral competition in state supreme court elections can be understood by looking at characteristics of the candidates, the state and electoral context, and institutional arrangements.

Nonvoting and the Decisiveness of Electoral Outcomes

Abramson, P. R., Diskin, A., Felsenthal, D. S. — 2007-08-27

The authors reexamine the relationship between closeness and turnout by looking at aggregate-level variables and studying fifty-seven elections. They also attempt to estimate how much voter turnout is likely to change as a function of change in the closeness of elections. Specifically, they hypothesize that in first-past-the-post elections, turnout will be affected by the voters' expectation of how close the elections are going to be, by the turnout in the previous election, and by the closeness of the previous election. The authors test their hypotheses using turnout and closeness data for all fourteen general elections held in the United Kingdom since 1955 and all forty-three congressional elections held in the United States between 1920 and 2004. Their findings strongly support their hypotheses.

The Paradox of Term Limit Support: To Know Them Is NOT to Love Them

Weissert, C. S., Halperin, K. — 2007-08-27

The public has evidenced continuing support for state legislative term limits, while those who most closely observe the impacts of term limits often support their repeal or extension. This article examines this paradox of term limit support among two groups of knowledgeable observers—party chairs and lobbyists in Florida. The findings support the idea that to know term limits is NOT to love them. They also suggest that among these political elites, support for the repeal of term limits is not a matter of self-interest, but rather reflects a concern about the institutional viability of an important state representative body.

Talking Locally and Voting Globally: Duverger's Law and Homogeneous Discussion Networks

Clough, E. — 2007-08-27

The heterogeneity of discussion networks has been shown to have an effect on citizens' ideas and behavior. In this article, the author undertakes to show that the relative heterogeneity of political discussion networks affects voter coordination on two parties in a single-member plurality system. Specifically, if voters do not have access to polling information about the relative standing of candidates, voters whose discussion networks are ideologically heterogeneous are more likely to coordinate on two parties than voters whose discussion networks are ideologically homogeneous. The author examines this hypothesis using an agent-based model.

Economic Voting and Political Sophistication in the United States: A Reassessment

Godbout, J.-F., Belanger, E. — 2007-08-27

The authors propose a reexamination of the conditioning effect of political sophistication on economic voting in U.S. presidential elections. Replicating Gomez and Wilson's (2001) analysis with survey data from the past five American presidential elections (1988—2004), they show that low sophisticates strictly rely on sociotropic economic judgments in their intention to support the incumbent party's candidate. For their part, high sophisticates appear to use both sociotropic and pocketbook evaluations in their voting intention, but only in elections where the sitting incumbent is running for reelection (1992, 1996, and 2004). Most of these findings do not hold, however, once the postelectoral reported vote is used as the dependent variable. Indeed, the authors find that pocketbook evaluations do not have a significant impact on high sophisticates' reported vote choice, and they also find important variance in economic voting effects among low sophisticates. The results indicate that high sophisticates continue to use sociotropic evaluations in their voting decision, but only in incumbent elections. Overall, the analysis raises doubts about some of the previous studies' conclusions and underlines the importance of considering the moderating role of contextual factors such as incumbency and political campaigns in economic voting studies.

Economic Voting and Political Sophistication: Defending Heterogeneous Attribution

Gomez, B. T., Wilson, J. M. — 2007-08-27

The authors reply here to Godbout and Bélanger's critique of their work on political sophistication and economic voting. Principally, the authors stress the importance of using contemporaneous economic assessment and candidate preference measures in assessing their relationship. They also emphasize the empirical support for their key contentions that less sophisticated citizens tend not to credit/blame government for their own economic circumstances, and that more sophisticated citizens tend to focus on actors other than the president when attributing responsibility for the national economy. Finally, the authors stress the variety of contexts, both outside the United States and outside the domain of economic voting, in which their theory has found support.

How Sophisticated Can a Voter Be to Make Causal Attributions? A Response to Gomez and Wilson's Comment

Godbout, J.-F., Belanger, E. — 2007-08-27

The authors present a response to Gomez and Wilson's comments related to their article "Economic Voting and Political Sophistication in the United States: A Reassessment," published in this issue of Political Research Quarterly.

Getting Attention: The Effect of Legal Mobilization on the U.S. Supreme Court's Attention to Issues

Peters, C. S. — 2007-08-27

This article asks two questions stemming from a conflict in the literature on the U.S. Supreme Court's attention to issues: (1) Are levels of legal mobilization explained by salient Court decisions? (2) Is the Court's level of attention explained by levels of legal mobilization? To answer them, the author tests hypotheses from the public policy and public law literature on data from seven specific issue areas. The author finds that levels of legal mobilization cannot be explained by past salient decisions of the Court but finds some evidence that changes in the Court's levels of attention are explained by levels of mobilization.

Erratum

2007-08-27