Political Research Quarterly recent issues

Tocqueville as Critical Race Theorist: Whiteness as Property, Interest Convergence, and the Limits of Jacksonian Democracy

Tillery, A. B. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

This article demonstrates that there are affinities between Tocqueville’s commentary on race and race relations in Democracy in America and the core assumptions of the critical race theory movement. Tocqueville shares with critical race theorists the view that white privilege was endemic in American culture and shapes both jurisprudence and outcomes in democratic politics. Moreover, Tocqueville presages the criticalists’ arguments about the negative externalities of white privilege and interest convergence. The presence of these ideas in Tocqueville’s text undermines the consensus view in the political science literature that he failed to take racial inequality seriously in his analysis of America.

Measuring Changes in American Party Reputations, 1939--2004

Pope, J. C., Woon, J. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Scholars increasingly emphasize that party reputations are valuable electoral assets. The authors measure temporal change in the parties’ relative reputations across several distinct policy areas and find that each party tends to have advantages on certain issues but that the patterns are far from permanent. Democrats have strong advantages on social welfare issues, but Republicans have made some gains. Republican advantages on taxes and "law and order" have been weaker. The authors also find that party competition has strengthened impressions of the parties. Results support the notion that parties carry a collective—if occasionally transitory—reputation on a host of issues.

An Introduction to Crisp Set QCA, with a Comparison to Binary Logistic Regression

Grofman, B., Schneider, C. Q. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

The authors focus on the dichotomous crisp set form of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The authors review basic set theoretic QCA methodology, including truth tables, solution formulas, and coverage and consistency measures and discuss how QCA (a) displays relations between variables, (b) highlights descriptive or complex causal accounts for specific (groups of) cases, and (c) expresses the degree of fit. To help readers determine when QCA’s configurational approach might be appropriate, the authors compare and contrast QCA to mainstream statistical methodologies such as binary logistic regressions done on the same data set.

The Consequences of Rivalry: Explaining Insurgent Violence Using Fuzzy Sets

Metelits, C. M. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

The author presents a unique theory of insurgent group behavior using a fuzzy-set approach. In contrast to arguments that place the culpability of insurgent group violence toward noncombatants in the arena of natural resource endowments or the distinctive nature of contemporary conflicts, the author uses a component of qualitative comparative analysis to show that the presence of "active rivalry" is critical in determining the type of behavior insurgent groups will display with regard to local populations they claim to represent. The use of fuzzy-set analysis is uncommon in conflict studies yet proves to be a valuable alternative to standard statistical tests.

Getting to the Top: Career Paths of Women in Latin American Cabinets

Escobar-Lemmon, M., Taylor-Robinson, M. M. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Are presidential cabinets gendered institutions? This important question has been ignored for Latin America to date. In this article, the authors propose four benchmarks for evaluating whether presidential cabinets should be classified as gendered institutions. If they are we should observe (1) that there are differences in career length, continuity, and mobility between men and women; (2) that women receive feminine domain posts and men masculine ones; (3) that masculine ministries offer greater potential for upward mobility; and (4) that women must be better qualified than men to receive appointments. Using data from eighteen Latin American countries from 1980 to 2003, the authors analyze the degree to which cabinets conform to these criteria. They conclude that even though women are starting to gain appointments to high-profile and to masculine domain cabinet posts, the overall evidence supports the conclusion that there are gendered patterns to cabinet appointments.

Contentious Challenges and Government Responses in Latin America

Franklin, J. C. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

This article examines how seven Latin American governments responded to 827 contentious political challenges. The research goes beyond most previous research by considering four governmental responses: concession, repression, toleration, and the combination of concession and repression. The results show that challengers can increase their chances of winning concessions by making limited demands and utilizing nonviolent occupations and hunger strikes. Violent challenges are ineffective and tend to result in repression. Governments also tend to offer concessions under democratic regimes or when they have recently been criticized for human rights abuses while also receiving substantial foreign aid and investment.

Do Gender Quotas Foster Women's Political Engagement?: Lessons from Latin America

Zetterberg, P. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Gender quotas have been held to have more far-reaching consequences than increasing women’s political representation. Some scholars claim that they foster women’s overall political engagement. After elaborating a theoretical framework on how affirmative action policies to legislative bodies might be beneficial to constituents of the targeted group, the author tests this hypothesis on women in seventeen Latin American countries. Contrasting previous claims, the author shows that there is no general proof of attitudinal or behavioral effects. The analysis represents an initial attempt to theorize and use large-scale data to examine the more long-term consequences of quota policies on female constituents’ political involvement.

The Corruption-Enhancing Role of Re-Election Incentives?: Counterintuitive Evidence from Brazil's Audit Reports

Pereira, C., Melo, M. A., Figueiredo, C. M. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Traditional wisdom on the effect of re-election on incumbent performance is that first-term politicians refrain from rent extraction because they want to be re-elected. The authors find no evidence to support this belief. The corruption-reducing effects of re-election may be offset when the expected utility for rent extraction is very high. This occurs when the likelihood of detecting corruption is very low. Mayors who committed irregularities are less likely to be re-elected when this information is released in the electoral year only. Although citizens hold mayors accountable for bad behavior, they do not do so to the point of discouraging misbehavior.

Comparative Sources of Judicial Empowerment: Ideas and Interests

Woods, P. J., Hilbink, L. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Judicial Reform in Mexico: Political Insurance or the Search for Political Legitimacy?

Inclan Oseguera, S. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Judicial reform presents a paradox: What makes governing elites decide to grant power to an autonomous judiciary that will eventually curtail their own powers? The engagement of governing elites in judicial reforms is recently being explained as strategic moves to protect their interests when they can foresee a future loss of political control. Using the Mexican reform process of 1994-95, this work discusses the applicability of such perspective for this case and offers an alternative explanation based on the reformers’ need to legitimize their rule in a context marked by political competition and a discredited supreme court.

In Pursuit of "Contemporary Civilization": Judicial Empowerment in Turkey

Shambayati, H., Kirdis, E. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Turkey’s powerful Constitutional Court serves as an administrative attaché of state elites in overseeing the political arena and transforming the society. Looking at the courts as administrative agents suggests that the ruling elite might turn to courts not in an attempt to safeguard their immediate interests, but to transform the society by extending the reach of the state. The authors contend that in countries where the state pursues a civilizing mission, judicial empowerment is an attractive tool for defending the state against powerful segments of the society who might subscribe to different civilizing projects.

The Constituted Nature of Constituents' Interests: Historical and Ideational Factors in Judicial Empowerment

Hilbink, L. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Through an analysis of constitutional transitions in one democratizing case (Spain 1978) and one authoritarian case (Chile 1980), this article argues that judicial empowerment can be accurately explained only through reference to the historical and ideational context in which institutional designers operate. Historical and ideational factors—that is, shared experiences, beliefs, identities, ideologies, and interpretations of events and sequences of events at home or abroad—shape the way that political actors perceive their interests, formulate their strategies, and justify their decisions and are thus crucial to explaining when, why, and how institutional designers choose to empower courts.

Postmaterialist Social Constituencies and Political Triggers: Explaining Bill of Rights Genesis in Internally Stable, Advanced Democracies

Erdos, D. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

This article forwards a new postmaterialist trigger theory (PTT) of the origins of bills of rights in stable, advanced democracies. Socially, such projects are linked to the postmaterialist growth of "cultural left" forces such as civil libertarians and social equality seekers. Additionally, a focusing trigger providing an immediate political rationale for change is also generally required. This trigger determines the precise timing of any change and also influences its shape. Such a trigger need not be strategic or prospective in nature. Instead, political elites may embrace bill of rights genesis as part of a backward-looking "aversive" reaction to prior negative political experiences during opposition.

The Ideational Foundations of Israel's "Constitutional Revolution"

Woods, P. J. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

In the Israeli case, judicial empowerment has come primarily through judicial initiative rather than emerging from majoritarian institutions or strategic considerations relating to electoral politics. Justices with deep commitments to political-liberal rights engaged in a decades-long process of entrenching a political-liberal rights regime through jurisprudence. At the heart of this sea change in Israeli politics was a shift in ideas.

The Realist Turn in Comparative Constitutional Politics

Hirschl, R. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Comparative Analysis of Judicial Power

McCann, M. W. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

Where We Came from: Defining the Western Political Science Association: A Brief, Very Selective Organizational History Sampled from the Archives of the WPSA

Moulds, E. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:17:35 PST

James Madison's Psychology of Public Opinion

Gabrielson, T. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

This article argues that in his "Party Press Essays," James Madison expounds a psychology of public opinion that is identifiable, but less developed, in his earlier writings. In these essays, Madison explains how a territorial mean, or a "practicable sphere," contributes to a psychological mean that creates a context for the emergence of an enlightened majority capable of mobilizing against an abusive regime. Attending to Madison’s psychology of public opinion highlights the political importance of affect in Madison’s thought and clarifies his position regarding the appropriate role of the people in a republic.

Are All Precincts Created Equal?: The Prevalence of Low-Quality Precincts in Low-Income and Minority Communities

Barreto, M. A., Cohen-Marks, M., Woods, N. D. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

More than forty years after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a fundamental question remains unanswered: although all citizens have an equal right to the ballot, do all citizens enjoy equal access to the ballot box? That is, are voting precincts in predominantly low-income and non-white neighborhoods less visible, less stable, harder to find, and harder to navigate than voting precincts in high-income and predominantly white neighborhoods? If so, does the lower quality result in lower levels of voting, all other things equal? The authors’ analysis indicates that the quality of polling places varies across the diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles and that the quality of polling places influences voter turnout. Low-income and minority communities tended to have "lower quality" precincts, which tended to depress voter turnout.

The Importance of Race and Ethnicity in Congressional Primary Elections

Branton, R. P. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Research regarding the electoral importance of race and ethnicity in congressional elections is limited by the overwhelming focus on general-election outcomes. This article seeks to extend this research by examining minority candidate emergence and electoral competition in U.S. House primary elections, using a new data set on all U.S. House contests between 1994 and 2004 that includes demographic information on all the candidates in the primary elections. The results indicate that district-level race and ethnicity are associated with minority candidate emergence; furthermore, the presence of minority candidates influences electoral competitiveness in primary elections.

Meaning and Measurement: Reorienting the Race Politics Debate

Neblo, M. A. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Is race politics about racism, ideology, or group conflict? After decades, this debate seems scarcely closer to resolution, despite the enormous theoretical, empirical, and normative issues at stake. I argue that a misguided approach to interpreting public opinion has stymied the debate. All three theories implicitly try to read a person’s motives for supporting or opposing proposals off of their placement in the so-called complex space of contemporary opinion about race. However, I show that because the supposed complexity of the issue space is based on a methodological artifact, any attempt to read qualitative differences in motives from it must fail.

Do Gender Stereotypes Transcend Party?

Sanbonmatsu, K., Dolan, K. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Voters hold stereotypes about candidate gender and candidate party. Yet little is known about the intersection of gender and party stereotypes. In this article, we investigate whether gender stereotypes transcend party. We consider whether gender stereotypes affect woman politicians differently by party and examine the effect of partisan identification on gender stereotypes. We find that the public perceives gender differences within both political parties. Thus the presence of the party cue does not preclude a role for candidate gender. However, we also find that the implications of gender stereotypes are somewhat different for Democratic and Republican women.

Living in a Battleground: Presidential Campaigns and Fundamental Predictors of Vote Choice

McClurg, S. D., Holbrook, T. M. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Little evidence links the strategic decisions of campaigns to individual-level voting behavior. Yet for campaigns to matter in the way that experts argue, exposure to campaigns must also matter, so there should be observable differences in the structure of vote choice between battleground and nonbattleground states. Combining presidential campaign data with the Senate Election Study, the authors show that intense campaigning can activate factors such as race, ideology, partisanship, and presidential approval. The authors find that the campaigns affected different variables in 1988 than in 1992, which they hypothesize is the consequence of campaign messages.

The Human Dimension of Elections: How Poll Workers Shape Public Confidence in Elections

Hall, T. E., Quin Monson, J., Patterson, K. D. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Voting technologies received considerable scrutiny after the 2000 election. However, the voter—poll worker interaction is also of critical importance. Poll workers exercise discretion and implement policies in ways that directly affect the voting experience. The authors examine the relationship between voters’ perceptions of the poll worker job performance and measures of voter confidence. In an ordered logit model, the perception of poll workers is a significant predictor of voter confidence even in the presence of numerous controls. The results suggest that overlooking the recruitment and training of competent poll workers can have a detrimental effect on voter confidence.

Conditions for Competition in Low-Information Judicial Elections: The Case of Intermediate Appellate Court Elections

Streb, M. J., Frederick, B. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Although much work has examined the conditions for competition and incumbent defeat in high-visibility elections, scholars have conducted little research on these conditions for less visible offices. We look at one particular type of low-information election: those to state intermediate appellate courts (IAC). Using a comprehensive data set of all IAC elections involving incumbents from 2000 to 2007, we estimate models of challenger entry and incumbent success once challenged. Our results comport, in some cases, and diverge, in others, with the findings of studies of more visible judicial and legislative offices.

Policy Polarization among Party Elites and the Significance of Political Awareness in the Mass Public

Claassen, R. L., Highton, B. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

This article analyzes opinions about abortion, racial, and social welfare policies, comparing their determinants among citizens with different levels of political information over the past several decades. Hypothesizing that growing elite partisan polarization may have exacerbated the political implications of differences in political awareness, the authors examine how increasing clarity of party—policy linkages among political elites influences party—policy linkages in the mass public. The results show that only the well informed responded to the growing elite polarization by becoming more partisan in their opinions. Apparently, in the absence of the motivation to develop coherent opinions, even a simplification of the political environment does not close the gaps between those who are more and less aware about politics.

Federal Policy Activity and the Mobilization of State Lobbying Organizations

Baumgartner, F. R., Gray, V., Lowery, D. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

The mobilization of organized interests is affected not only by social and economic "supply" factors but also by government-related "demand" factors. The authors assess the impact of government activity on the mobilization of interests by examining how federal policy activity stimulates lobbying activity in the states. Empirically, they do this by introducing the federal hearings data used by Leech et al. into the model of state lobbying registrations used by Gray et al. The authors find that congressional hearings in a particular issue area have significant—albeit complex— effects on the mobilization of state interest organizations in that same area.

The Scientific Analysis of Politics: Important Contributions from Some Overlooked Sources

McDermott, R., Renwick Monroe, K. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Mutual Interests: The Case for Increasing Dialogue between Political Science and Neuroscience

McDermott, R. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Can neuroscientific techniques shed light on important questions in political science? The author argues for increased dialogue across disciplines as wide ranging as evolutionary psychology and biology, biological anthropology, behavioral economics, behavior genetics, behavioral ecology, and cognitive neuroscience. These fields find a clear theoretical convergence around evolutionary development models. These paradigms can be applied successfully to political decision making. In turn, political scientists can offer significant contributions to this research agenda by posing critical questions concerning human social and political behavior, including bias against out-groups, the formation and maintenance of coalitions, and the origin of preferences in decision making.

Is There a "Party" in Your Genes?

Hatemi, P. K., Alford, J. R., Hibbing, J. R., Martin, N. G., Eaves, L. J. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Utilizing quantitative genetic models, the authors examine the sources of party identification and the intensity of that identification. The results indicate genes exert little, if any, influence on party identification, directly or indirectly through covariates. However, we find that genes appear to play a pivotal role in shaping the strength of an individual’s party identification. Together with recent examinations of political attitudes and vote choice, these findings begin to provide a more complete picture of the source of partisanship and the complex nature of the political phenotype.

The Heritability of Partisan Attachment

Settle, J. E., Dawes, C. T., Fowler, J. H. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

One of the strongest regularities in the empirical political science literature is the well-known correlation in parent and child partisan behavior. Until recently, this phenomenon was thought to result solely from parental socialization, but new evidence on genetic sources of behavior suggests it might also be due to heritability. In this article, the authors hypothesize that genes contribute to variation in a general tendency toward strength of partisanship. Using data collected at the Twins Days Festival, the authors compare the similarity of partisan strength in identical twins who share all of their genes to the similarity of partisan strength in nonidentical twins who share only half of their genes. The results show that heritability accounts for almost half of the variance in strength of partisan attachment, suggesting we should pay closer attention to the role of biology in the expression of important political behaviors.

Politics and an Innate Moral Sense: Scientific Evidence for an Old Theory?

Renwick Monroe, K., Martin, A., Ghosh, P. — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Part of a symposium arguing for increased interdisciplinary conversations, this article suggests how political scientists can benefit from recent scientific work in child development, evolutionary biology, behavioral economics, primatology, and linguistics. All offer empirical evidence suggesting human beings are born with a moral grammar hard-wired into their neural circuitry. The analysis challenges claims for cultural relativity and suggests psychological egoism and rational choice theory leave unexplained much political behavior because they rest on too narrow a conceptualization of basic human nature, omitting precisely the sociability that moral sense theory places as a fundamental part of our human nature.

Western Political Science Association

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:09:19 PDT

Breaking Bonds?: The Iraq War and the Loss of Republican Dominance in National Security

Goble, H., Holm, P. M. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:20 PDT

For decades, Americans have trusted the Republicans over the Democrats to handle national security issues, by a wide margin. Over the Bush presidency, that gap has disappeared. The authors explore the causes and consequences of this loss and suggest several new avenues for research on issue ownership. Findings indicate that Bush's handling of the Iraq war has played a decisive role in diminishing the Republican Party's reputational advantage on national security. This has had significant electoral repercussions both for the president and his copartisans in Congress.

Running on Iraq or Running from Iraq? Conditional Issue Ownership in the 2006 Midterm Elections

Dulio, D. A., Trumbore, P. F. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

The authors examine the role of Iraq as a campaign issue in the 2006 midterm elections, analyzing more than 400 television advertisements produced by ninety-four candidates in forty-seven competitive races for the U.S. House of Representatives. Generally, the authors find that the issue of the war was not as central an element of candidate appeals as the conventional wisdom and media storyline leading up to Election Day implied. On the issue of Iraq, as well as other issues central to 2006, the authors find evidence that challengers pursued different issue strategies than either incumbents or open-seat candidates of the same party.

Pluralism, Relativism, and Liberalism

Moore, M. J. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

One major focus of recent value-pluralist literature has been the question of what normative consequences follow from pluralism. This essay critically examines three arguments that attempt to show that either liberalism or a bounded modus vivendi is the state of affairs that pluralism makes morally preferable. All three arguments are shown to encounter the same fundamental problem—once we have agreed that values and sets of values are unrankable, any effort to claim that one such set is morally preferable will inevitably contradict value pluralism, either explicitly or implicitly. If this is correct, it seems that pluralism leads to relativism.

Diverse Disparities: The Politics and Economics of Wage, Market, and Disposable Income Inequalities

Beramendi, P., Cusack, T. R. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

It is widely thought that among the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), income inequality has become more widespread over the past decades. The authors show that this image is misleading. The OECD countries remain more diverse in their distributions of labor earnings and disposable income than they are in their distributions of market income. The larger and persistent cross-national variation in the distributions of work-related earnings and disposable income is attributable to the role of political actors (such as unions and political parties) as well as economic institutions. The way in which political parties are able to pursue their goals varies across forms of income. Political parties' capacities to shape the distribution of labor earnings is contingent on the degree of wage-bargaining coordination. In turn, political parties directly affect the distribution of disposable income through their choices about fiscal instruments.

Relative Extremism and Relative Moderation: Strategic Party Positioning in Democratic Systems

Warwick, P. V. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

This article investigates the ways in which parties stake out left—right positions that deviate from the mean positions of their supporters. Previous research has shown that parties tend to adopt positions that are more extreme than those of their supporters, but there are at least two arguments that also imply the presence of relative moderation—a tendency for moderate parties to be more moderate than their supporters. Using surveys covering 34 countries compiled by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, this investigation shows that parties in coalitional systems display both phenomena.

Spatial Proximity to the U.S.--Mexico Border and Newspaper Coverage of Immigration Issues

Branton, R. P., Dunaway, J. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

This article examines how geographic proximity to the U.S.—Mexico border influences newspaper coverage of immigration issues. The authors investigate two questions: Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of Latino immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? We find that news organizations closer to the border generate a higher volume of articles about Latino immigration, articles featuring the negative aspects of immigration, and articles regarding illegal immigration.

New Evidence for the Theory of Groups: Trade Association Lobbying in Washington, D.C

Drope, J. M., Hansen, W. L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

Group theorists led by Olson have observed that common interests do not produce collective action, except under conditions that overcome the free-rider incentive. While collective action theories have captured the imagination of the discipline, there has been surprisingly little examination of the relationship between business collective action and patterns of market structures. Research has instead focused more on firm-level political activity. Accordingly, this research addresses the original theoretical propositions by examining industry associations' political activity nationally. Some forty years after the formulation of the theoretical argument, we find evidence supporting the logic of collective action. More concentrated industries are likelier to have politically active associations than more competitive industries.

The Contract with America and Conditional Party Government in State Legislatures

Clucas, R. A. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

This study tests two theories of legislative leadership by comparing the power of majority-party leaders in states where the Republican Party adopted a state-level version of "The Contract with America" in 1994, with that of leaders in states where no contract was adopted. Using a nationwide survey of legislators to rank power, the study finds that the lower house leaders in contract states were stronger in 1995, as were those from states in which the public was ideologically polarized along partisan lines. The results provide support for conditional party government theory while expanding our knowledge of state legislative politics.

God Talk: Religious Cues and Electoral Support

Calfano, B. R., Djupe, P. A. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

It was revealed in 2006 that Republican candidates employ a type of religious code in their political speeches. Their intention is to cue the support of religiously conservative voters without alienating other voters who may not share the same social issue agenda. The authors assess the efficacy of this GOP Code on the support of voters in specific religious traditions in an experimental setting. As expected, the code proves to be an effective cue for white evangelical Protestants but has no effect on mainline Protestants and Catholics. The form and function of the code expands our understanding of religious influence and broadens the spectrum of cues the electorate uses.

Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support for Evangelical Candidates

McDermott, M. L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

While much important research exists on the topic of religion and politics, very little exists on candidate religious affiliation and its potential effect on voters' behavior. This article addresses the issue of candidate religion from the point of view that it acts as an information cue for voters in elections through trait and belief stereotypes. Using a case study of hypothetical evangelical Christian candidates and an original experimental data set, this analysis demonstrates that voters stereotype evangelicals as more conservative than other candidates, as well as more competent and trustworthy, all else equal. These stereotypes subsequently play a significant role in voters' choices of whom to support.

Community Context, Personal Contact, and Support for an Anti--Gay Rights Referendum

Barth, J., Overby, L. M., Huffmon, S. H. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

Using data from an unusual survey, we gauge factors influencing support for a state anti—gay rights referendum. After controlling for other powerful predictors of attitudes, we find personal contact (especially relevant and voluntary contact) has an important impact on public support, although community context does not. These findings support an integrated notion of interactions with "out" groups, grounded in social categorization theory, that sees community context and interpersonal contact as concentric circles, moving from abstract, detached forms of contact to more pronounced, personal forms. However, even among those with substantial interpersonal contact, support for the referendum was still widespread.

The Federalist Society's Influence on the Federal Judiciary

Scherer, N., Miller, B. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

Only twenty-five years after its founding, the Federalist Society today boasts a nationwide membership including renowned attorneys, politicians, policy makers, and jurists. Although the Society maintains that it is not a political organization, liberal political activists claim the Society has long pursued an ambitious—and extremely conservative—political agenda. In this article we ask: do members of the Federalist Society decide cases in a more conservative manner than other nonmember jurists? Using data on decision making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, we find Federalist Society members are significantly more conservative than nonmembers and examine the long-term implications of our study.

The Effects of Race and Gender on the Judicial Ambitions of State Trial Court Judges

Jensen, J. M., Martinek, W. L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

The intersection of gender—and to a lesser extent, race—and political ambition has been the subject of considerable research. To date, however, analyses of the intersection of political ambition, race, and gender in the context of the judiciary have been limited. The authors seek to remedy this deficiency with the use of data from a recent survey of justices of the New York State Supreme Court, the major trial court in the State of New York. They find that female and nonwhite justices have a greater desire to move up in a judicial career than do their white male counterparts.

Assessing the Applicability of Strategic Theory to Explain Decision Making on the Courts of Appeals

Barnes Bowie, J., Songer, D. R. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

The focus of this analysis is whether a strategic perspective provides a useful approach that enhances an understanding of broad patterns of judicial decision making on the U.S. Courts of Appeals. The authors examine whether it is reasonable in the majority of cases for appeals court judges to modify their behavior when necessary to avoid reversal by the Supreme Court. This assessment utilizes statistical analyses and interviews from twenty-eight judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Based on a three-part argument, the authors conclude that a strategic perspective is not helpful in understanding the decision calculus of appeals court judges.

The Role of Personal Attributes in African American Roll-Call Voting Behavior in Congress

Rocca, M. S., Sanchez, G. R., Nikora, R. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

In this research note, the authors explore the extent to which personal attributes influence voting behavior for African American members of Congress. The authors test the relationship between legislators' personal attributes and Poole and Rosenthal's DW-NOMINATE scores for black members of the 101st to 108th Congresses. The results suggest that personal attributes matter. They increase the explained variance in the models, and factors such as generational cohort, religion, and military experience are statistically significant. These results suggest that while descriptive members of Congress share much in common, they should not be interpreted as monolithic with respect to congressional voting.

Racial Threat, Residential Segregation, and the Policy Attitudes of Anglos

Rocha, R. R., Espino, R. — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

The impact of racial context on the political behavior of Anglos has been a focus of social science research for well over half a century. We suggest that a shortcoming of earlier work has been the failure to account for the levels of segregation within a community. Relying on data from the Latino National Political Survey, our findings show that Anglo attitudes toward English-language and immigration policies are significantly related to changes in the size of the Latino population conditional on levels of segregation. We also find that Latinos elicit different reactions from Anglos based on their fluency in English and nativity.

Western Political Science Association

Tue, 05 May 2009 15:43:21 PDT

Political Inquiry and the Metapractical Voice: Weber and Oakeshott

Gunnell, J. G. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Discussions of Max Weber's essay on "The `Objectivity' of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy" and Michael Oakeshott's reflections "On the Theoretical Understanding of Human Conduct" have seldom included a detailed textual analysis of the arguments. Such an analysis is important, because these essays not only thoroughly addressed the issue of the nature of social scientific inquiry but uniquely confronted and illuminated two fundamental and endemic paradoxes which have been particularly prominent at crucial junctures in conversations about the identity and role of fields such as political science. These paradoxes, however, arise from the very nature of metapractices and, specifically, from the complex cognitive and practical relationships among philosophy, social science, and practices such as politics.

Hope, Fear, and the Mollification of the Vanquished in Hobbes's Behemoth or the Long Parliament

Abosch, Y. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Contrary to a standard view that Hobbes recommends elimination of private opinion by enlarging fear of violent death, in Behemoth, his dialogue on the causes of the English Civil War, he shows how to shift the balance of hope and fear that can motivate obedience but also engender rebellion. By linking recent events to historical struggles for power, Hobbes's teacher transfers the student's fear of destruction at the hands of domestic "enemies" to all individuals as insatiable seekers of power. Meanwhile, the student's hope of security is shifted from real or imagined heroes to the depersonalized institutions of Restoration England.

Partisanship and Policy Choice: What's Left for the Left in Latin America?

Kingstone, P., Young, J. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Leftists seem to be on the rise in Latin America, but it is unclear to what extent this impacts policy. Thus, a crucial question hangs over this apparent "shift" in regional preferences: does the left have any real options to offer? Or in Latin America in an age of globalization, "what's left for the left?" The contending perspectives are compared, and then the evidence is evaluated using a series of econometric models. In sum, no discernible policy differences between the left and the rest were found. In the conclusion, the implications of this result for Latin American democracy are discussed.

Direct Presidential Elections and Turnout in Parliamentary Contests

Tavits, M. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

The method of electing the head of state in a parliamentary system is a critical constitutional matter. A popular argument made is that allowing direct presidential elections strengthens democratic practices. Another argument posits that multiplying the number of political contests may fatigue voters and decrease their participation levels. This article considers electoral turnout in a global sample of parliamentary democracies with a nonhereditary head of state from 1945 to 2006 and finds that direct presidential elections decrease turnout in parliamentary elections by about 7 percentage points. This effect is stronger than that of most existing explanations of turnout.

Examining the Possible Corrosive Impact of Negative Advertising on Citizens' Attitudes toward Politics

Jackson, R. A., Mondak, J. J., Huckfeldt, R. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Negative campaign advertisements have been depicted by many observers as a scourge on American politics. One facet of the case against negative ads—that such commercials discourage voter turnout—has been studied extensively in the past decade. In contrast, a second criticism—that negative advertisements produce corrosive effects on mass attitudes—has received less attention. This is unfortunate as it would be highly consequential for American political behavior if exposure to negative campaign ads breeds widespread cynicism and antipathy toward politics, disapproval of political institutions and elected officials, and a decline in political efficacy. We examine these charges in the context of the 2002 U.S. midterm elections. Merging data on political ads from the 2002 rendition of the Wisconsin Advertising (WiscAds) Project with individual-level data collected via the 2002 Exercising Citizenship in American Democracy Survey, we devise a thorough and multifaceted test of the case against negative advertising. Our analyses do not provide empirical support for the charges levied against negative campaign ads.

Partisan and Nonpartisan Message Content and Voter Mobilization: Field Experimental Evidence

Panagopoulos, C. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

This article reports the results of a randomized field experiment designed to compare directly the mobilization impact of partisan versus nonpartisan messages delivered via commercial phone banks. The experiment, conducted during the November 2005 municipal elections in Albany, New York, incorporates a series of design innovations to improve on extant research and to assuage skepticism about the internal and external validity of previous studies conducted along these lines. The author finds that partisan messages delivered by professional call centers are no more effective than nonpartisan messages in mobilizing voters.

The Viability Primary: Modeling Candidate Support before the Primaries

Dowdle, A. J., Adkins, R. E., Steger, W. P. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Public support before the primaries is the strongest predictor of presidential candidate attrition and of the aggregate primary vote. Yet little is known about the factors that drive candidate preferences before the primaries. This article examines pre-primary candidate support in national Gallup polls for open presidential nomination races from 1976 to 2004. The study finds that candidate background characteristics have marginal effects on mass partisan support during the earliest phase of the nomination campaign and that campaign-related factors significantly affect pre-primary candidate support once the campaign begins. Prior levels of support, network news coverage, and party elite endorsements are significant factors in explaining variation in mass partisan support for candidates throughout the nomination campaign. The decisions of well-known, party "heavyweights" to enter or not enter the race affect the choices available to partisan voters and the overall competitiveness of the nomination campaign.

Strategic Voting and Legislative Redistricting Reform: District and Statewide Representational Winners and Losers

Tolbert, C. J., Smith, D. A., Green, J. C. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Political elites are generally reluctant to alter the status quo unless a change will benefit them. Scholars have found that institutions, and the rules governing them, tend to evolve in ways that maintain equilibrium, preserving the status of winners. Are voters—when presented the opportunity—more likely than elites to alter political institutions? Using survey data, the authors explore mass support in the American states for changing how legislative districts are drawn. They find evidence that representational losers at statewide and district levels are more likely to vote for reforms to create nonpartisan redistricting in ballot issue contests, while electoral winners oppose reform. They argue that ordinary voters—like elected officials—may exhibit a similar instrumental rationale, using a self-interested calculus when serving as policy makers for a day. Beyond theorizing about conditions under which the mass public might engage in strategic voting, the analysis has implications for practical election reform efforts in the American states.

Religious Identification and Legislative Voting: The Mormon Case

Cann, D. M. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

While religion has profound effects on political behavior in mass publics, less is known about the effect of religion on political elites. This article considers the extent to which religious identification influences the roll-call voting behavior of Mormon members of the U.S. House of Representatives. While some aspects of Mormonism make it seem like a likely case for religious influence, the literature on legislative decision making provides no theoretical rationale for religious influence on legislative roll-call voting. A simple empirical test finds that Mormon representatives are no more unified in their voting behavior than are randomly selected sets of legislators.

Coalitions in the House?

Casellas, J. P. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

What kinds of districts do Latinos and African Americans represent? Are biracial coalitions forming to elect minority candidates in state legislatures? Is it easier for minorities to get elected in lower chamber districts? This article addresses these questions to assess whether Latinos are indeed becoming more alienated from African Americans. Using data from six diverse states and Congress, this article explains the conditions under which African Americans and Latinos are elected to some of the most important legislative institutions in the United States. Among the key findings are that biracial coalitions are not electing minority legislators in all of the states studied. That is, African American majority districts elect African Americans and Latino majority districts elect Latinos. In the U.S. House, however, African American members do benefit from Latino voters.

Political Mistrust Among African Americans and Support for the Political System

Avery, J. M. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Recent research argues that political mistrust among African Americans represents unhappiness with the political system. To date, however, no study has directly examined the influence of black mistrust on support for the system. In this study I show that greater mistrust among blacks leads to greater support for change in the party and electoral systems. I also find evidence of inter-racial differences in the influence of mistrust on support for the political system. These findings have implications for our understanding of the nature of political trust and add to a growing literature demonstrating the political consequences of mistrust in government.

Measuring Ideological Polarization on the United States Supreme Court

Clark, T. S. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

The study of ideological polarization is an important topic in research ranging from behavioral-level to institutional studies of politics. Polarization, however, has received little attention in the context of the Supreme Court, even while popular press and legal commentary suggest ideological heterogeneity on the Court is consequential for the Court's policy outputs. In this article, I apply an axiomatic measure of polarization developed by Esteban and Ray (1994) to study ideological heterogeneity on the Court to develop a "polarization statistic." I compare this method with other common polarization measures and provide evidence for the reliability of the measure.

The Managing of the Presidency: Applying Theory-Driven Empirical Models to the Study of White House Bureaucratic Performance

Vaughn, J. S., Villalobos, J. D. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

We argue that scholars of the presidency should begin to apply their rich descriptive understanding of White House organization and personnel to questions of causality. To help guide this effort, we offer a theory-driven empirical model that explains organizational performance. Importing theory from the public management literature, we show how scholars can use the Meier-O'Toole (MO) model to explain performance outcomes and dynamics for key political and policy functions within the institutional presidency. We introduce the MO model and discuss its potential impact on the field of presidency studies.

Representation and Local Policy: Relating County-Level Public Opinion to Policy Outputs

Percival, G. L., Johnson, M., Neiman, M. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Students of local politics have argued American federalism implies little role for local tastes in policy making. Peterson (1979) anticipates the pursuit of a productive tax base will depress subnational government spending on social services, while promoting developmental policies. We investigate the role public opinion plays in county-level redistributive, developmental, and allocational program spending in California, using a novel measure of county political ideology. Our findings challenge expectations that local governments are uniformly biased against redistribution. We find that social service spending varies across counties as a function of ideological orientation. In several policy areas, institutional structure mediates the responsiveness of officials.

Generalized Trust in Multi-organizational Policy Arenas: Studying Its Emergence from a Network Perspective

Berardo, R. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

This study tests hypotheses linking the structural characteristics of policy networks to the feelings of trust of their members. A social capital perspective suggests that actors in denser networks should trust others more, while an alternative "centrality" approach suggests that trust may be a byproduct of the occupation of key positions in the group. The author tests these expectations with data mapping policy networks in twenty-two estuaries in the United States and finds that centrality is a better predictor of trust. This opens room for questioning the real value of trust as a necessary ingredient in the solution of collective action dilemmas.

Political and Social Foundations for Environmental Sustainability

Whitford, A. B., Wong, K. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

This article quantitatively investigates several possible foundations for environmental sustainability, as measured across countries with varying geography, development patterns, social customs, and political arrangements. Two central hypotheses about the roles of democracy and federalism, as well as other hypotheses about economic development, religion, and demographics, are tested. The study provides moderate evidence that sustainability levels depend on democratization, but little evidence that it depends on the presence of federalism. In addition, it is found that the effects of environmental interests, development paths, and religious orientations vary across different measures of sustainability.

The Challenges of Measuring Environmental Sustainability: Comment on "Political and Social Foundations for Environmental Sustainability"

York, R. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Data Foundations for Sustainability: Response to York

Whitford, A. B., Wong, K. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

The authors respond to Richard York's main concerns about their approach to assessing the impact of federalism and democratization on environmental sustainability, as measured by the Environmental Sustainability Index.

Western Political Science Association

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST

Erratum

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:24:02 PST