Estimates of the Spatial Voting Model

2019 ◽  
pp. 818-838
Author(s):  
Christopher Hare ◽  
Keith T. Poole
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Model ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Geometric Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Empirical Estimates ◽  
Spatial Voting ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Choices

In this chapter, the authors survey the empirical success of the spatial (or geometric) theory of voting. Empirical work lagged behind the development of theory until about 30 years ago and since then has exploded, with ideal-point estimation emerging as an important methodological subfield in political science. Empirical applications of spatial theory are now legion, and the basic news is that the spatial model has been enormously successful in explaining observed political choices and outcomes at both the elite and mass levels. In the United States, empirical estimates of the spatial model also help to explain incongruities between the median voter theorem and party polarization. These empirical estimates have demonstrated that the theory is extremely powerful on a number of levels—indeed, that it is one of the most successful mathematical theories in the social sciences.

scholarly journals Birds of the Same Feather Tweet Together: Bayesian Ideal Point Estimation Using Twitter Data

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Barberá
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Latent Variable ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Online Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Party Registration ◽  
Twitter Users

Politicians and citizens increasingly engage in political conversations on social media outlets such as Twitter. In this article, I show that the structure of the social networks in which they are embedded can be a source of information about their ideological positions. Under the assumption that social networks are homophilic, I develop a Bayesian Spatial Following model that considers ideology as a latent variable, whose value can be inferred by examining which politics actors each user is following. This method allows us to estimate ideology for more actors than any existing alternative, at any point in time and across many polities. I apply this method to estimate ideal points for a large sample of both elite and mass public Twitter users in the United States and five European countries. The estimated positions of legislators and political parties replicate conventional measures of ideology. The method is also able to successfully classify individuals who state their political preferences publicly and a sample of users matched with their party registration records. To illustrate the potential contribution of these estimates, I examine the extent to which online behavior during the 2012 US presidential election campaign is clustered along ideological lines.

Agenda Constrained Legislator Ideal Points and the Spatial Voting Model

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Clinton ◽  
Adam Meirowitz
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Model ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Simulation Approach ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Spatial Voting ◽  
Legislative Agenda ◽  
Full Structure ◽  
Ideal Points ◽  
Spatial Voting Model

Existing preference estimation procedures do not incorporate the full structure of the spatial model of voting, as they fail to use the sequential nature of the agenda. In the maximum likelihood framework, the consequences of this omission may be far-reaching. First, information useful for the identification of the model is neglected. Specifically, information that identifies the proposal locations is ignored. Second, the dimensionality of the policy space may be incorrectly estimated. Third, preference and proposal location estimates are incorrect and difficult to interpret in terms of the spatial model. We also show that the Bayesian simulation approach to ideal point estimation (Clinton et al. 2000; Jackman 2000) may be improved through the use of information about the legislative agenda. This point is illustrated by comparing several preference estimators of the first U.S. House (1789–1791).

scholarly journals An Evolutionary View of the U.S. Supreme Court

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Noah Giansiracusa
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Hyperbolic Metrics ◽  
Tree Estimation ◽  
Evolutionary View ◽  
Euclidean Setting

The voting patterns of the nine justices on the United States Supreme Court continue to fascinate and perplex observers of the Court. While it is commonly understood that the division of the justices into a liberal branch and a conservative branch inevitably drives many case outcomes, there are finer, less transparent divisions within these two main branches that have proven difficult to extract empirically. This study imports methods from evolutionary biology to help illuminate the intricate and often overlooked branching structure of the justices’ voting behavior. Specifically, phylogenetic tree estimation based on voting disagreement rates is used to extend ideal point estimation to the non-Euclidean setting of hyperbolic metrics. After introducing this framework, comparing it to one- and two-dimensional multidimensional scaling, and arguing that it flexibly captures important higher-dimensional voting behavior, a handful of potential ways to apply this tool are presented. The emphasis throughout is on interpreting these judicial trees and extracting qualitative insights from them.

Testing the Predictions of the Multidimensional Spatial Voting Model with Roll Call Data

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyung-Ho Jeong
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Power ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Solution Concept ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Uncovered Set ◽  
Spatial Voting ◽  
Spatial Voting Model ◽  
Voting Model

This paper develops a procedure for locating proposals and legislators in a multidimensional policy space by applying agenda-constrained ideal point estimation. Placing proposals and legislators on the same scale allows an empirical test of the predictions of the spatial voting model. I illustrate this procedure by testing the predictive power of the uncovered set—a solution concept of the multidimensional spatial voting model—using roll call data from the U.S. Senate. Since empirical tests of the predictive power of the uncovered set have been limited to experimental data, this is the first empirical test of the concept's predictive power using real-world data.

Ideal Point Estimation in Political Hierarchies: A Framework and an Application to the US Executive Branch

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Acs
Keyword(s):  
Ideal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Hierarchy ◽  
Public Bureaucracy ◽  
Ideal Points ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract This article develops a procedure for estimating the ideal points of actors in a political hierarchy, such as a public bureaucracy. The procedure is based on a spatial auditing model and is motivated by the idea that while agents within a political hierarchy are typically segregated in different policy fiefdoms, they are bound to a common principal that can scrutinize their policy proposals through selective reviews, or audits. The theoretical model shows how a principal’s decision to audit an agent’s proposal can reveal both actors’ spatial preferences, despite the strategic nature of the interaction. Empirical identification of the ideal points comes from leveraging settings where elections replace principals over time, but not agents. Although the procedure is quite general, I provide an illustration using data on federal regulatory policymaking in the United States and recover ideal point estimates for presidents and agencies across three administrations.

The Transformational Change Challenge of Memes: The Case of Marriage Equality in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (8) ◽  
pp. 1667-1697
Author(s):  
Sandra Waddock ◽  
Steve Waddell ◽  
Paul S. Gray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Case History ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Systems Change ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Large Systems

This article explores the role of changing memes in large systems change toward marriage equality—popularly referred to as same-sex marriage—in the United States. Using an abbreviated case history of the transformation, the article particularly explores the shifting memes or core units of culture, in this case, word phrases associated with marriage equality over time, influencing the social change process. Using both the case history and the empirical work on memes, the article identifies nine lessons to support others tackling large systems change challenges.

The Complexity of Health Disparities: More Than Just Black–White Differences

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Charles Ellis ◽  
Molly Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Clinical Outcomes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Speech Language Pathology ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Language Pathology

Health disparities have once again moved to the forefront of America's consciousness with the recent significant observation of dramatically higher death rates among African Americans with COVID-19 when compared to White Americans. Health disparities have a long history in the United States, yet little consideration has been given to their impact on the clinical outcomes in the rehabilitative health professions such as speech-language pathology/audiology (SLP/A). Consequently, it is unclear how the absence of a careful examination of health disparities in fields like SLP/A impacts the clinical outcomes desired or achieved. The purpose of this tutorial is to examine the issue of health disparities in relationship to SLP/A. This tutorial includes operational definitions related to health disparities and a review of the social determinants of health that are the underlying cause of such disparities. The tutorial concludes with a discussion of potential directions for the study of health disparities in SLP/A to identify strategies to close the disparity gap in health-related outcomes that currently exists.

Sandra Ramos Revisited

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Silvia Spitta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Graphic Arts ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
The Rich

Sandra Ramos (b. 1969) is one of the few artists to reflect critically on both sides of the Cuban di-lemma, fully embodying the etymological origins of the word in ancient Greek: di-, meaning twice, and lemma, denoting a form of argument involving a choice between equally unfavorable alternatives. Throughout her works she shines a light on the dilemmas faced by Cubans whether in Cuba or the United States, underlining the bad personal and political choices people face in both countries. During the hard 1990s, while still in Havana, the artist focused on the traumatic one-way journey into exile by thousands, as well as the experience of profound abandonment experienced by those who were left behind on the island. Today she lives in Miami and operates a studio there as well as one in Havana. Her initial disorientation in the USA has morphed into an acerbic representation and critique of the current administration and a deep concern with the environmental collapse we face. A buffoonlike Trumpito has joined el Bobo de Abela and Liborio in her gallery of comic characters derived from the rich Cuban graphic arts tradition where she was formed. While Cuba is now represented as a rotten cake with menacing flies hovering over it ready to pounce, a bombastic Trumpito marches across the world stage, trampling everything underfoot, a dollar sign for a face.

Cross-space Consumption among Undocumented Chinese Immigrants in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Xiangyi Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Currency Exchange ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Migrants

We consider cross-space consumption as a form of transnational practice among international migrants. In this paper, we develop the idea of the social value of consumption and use it to explain this particular form of transnationalism. We consider the act of consumption to have not only functional value that satisfies material needs but also a set of nonfunctional values, social value included, that confer symbolic meanings and social status. We argue that cross-space consumption enables international migrants to take advantage of differences in economic development, currency exchange rates, and social structures between countries of destination and origin to maximize their expression of social status and to perform or regain social status. Drawing on a multisited ethnographic study of consumption patterns in migrant hometowns in Fuzhou, China, and in-depth interviews with undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York and their left-behind family members, we find that, despite the vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with the lack of citizenship rights in the host society, undocumented immigrants manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders and do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and vicarious consumption in their hometowns even without being physically present there. We conclude that, while cross-space consumption benefits individual migrants, left-behind families, and their hometowns, it serves to revive tradition in ways that fuel extravagant rituals, drive up costs of living, reinforce existing social inequality, and create pressure for continual emigration.

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