Shifting party goals: Party electoral support and legislative behavior in the majority and the minority

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110524
Author(s):  
Andrew O Ballard ◽  
Hans JG Hassell
Keyword(s):  
Primary Elections ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Us ◽  
Party Support

While scholars agree that parties are interested in both pragmatic (electoral) and programmatic (policy) goals, they disagree about the relative importance of those goals. How parties weight these goals has implications for the effect of party involvement on legislative behavior. We argue that parties emphasize these goals differently based on whether they are in the majority or minority. We examine links between party support in primary elections for the US Congress and subsequent legislative behaviors, finding that candidates who received more party support during the primary election were more likely to engage in partisan efforts in the next Congress. Further, party support of incoming legislators is linked to increased partisan behavior through leapfrog representation. We find that these relationships are stronger for majority party candidates, suggesting that parties put a greater emphasis on winning majorities when in the minority but a greater emphasis on policy congruence when in the majority.

scholarly journals What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW B. HALL
Keyword(s):  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
General Election ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The U.S

This article studies the interplay of U.S. primary and general elections. I examine how the nomination of an extremist changes general-election outcomes and legislative behavior in the U.S. House, 1980–2010, using a regression discontinuity design in primary elections. When an extremist—as measured by primary-election campaign receipt patterns—wins a “coin-flip” election over a more moderate candidate, the party’s general-election vote share decreases on average by approximately 9–13 percentage points, and the probability that the party wins the seat decreases by 35–54 percentage points. This electoral penalty is so large that nominating the more extreme primary candidate causes the district’s subsequent roll-call representation to reverse, on average, becoming more liberal when an extreme Republican is nominated and more conservative when an extreme Democrat is nominated. Overall, the findings show how general-election voters act as a moderating filter in response to primary nominations.

Legislating Morality in the US Congress…or Not: Religion, Polarization, and the Next Wave of Culture

The Forum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-119
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Oldmixon
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Party Polarization ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
The Us ◽  
Policy Solutions

Abstract Americans routinely petition their legislators for moral redress, drawing the US Congress into cultural debates about who we are as a people and what behaviors and social relationships are compatible with that shared identity. By engaging moral issues, Congress affirms one set of values over another, and legislative behavior is informed by cultural proxies such as religion, ideology, and partisanship. The institution falls short, however, when it comes to crafting lasting, comprehensive policy outputs in this domain. This is because moral issues do not lend themselves to compromise, whereas Congress is structured to seek compromise. The difficulties are exacerbated by party polarization driven by religious and ideological sorting. The upshot is that policymakers are often unable to build the broad coalitions necessary provide policy solutions. Assuming institutional arrangements and levels of polarization remain intact, and barring massive shifts in public opinion or developments in the courts, gridlock on moral issues will likely be the norm.

Searching for party effects in post-communist Ukraine

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank C. Thames
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Party Switching ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Intense Debate

Initial studies of legislative behavior in post-communist Ukraine suggest that party affiliation plays a significant role in legislator voting decisions. Yet, the intense debate in the US Congress literature on party effects suggests that finding effects can be problematic. The article contends that there was evidence of party effects in the mixed-member Verkhovna Rada (1998e 2002). An analysis of party switching demonstrates that those parliamentary parties linked to powerful political and economic elites were able to affect substantively the preferences of party switchers. While this analysis establishes the existence of party effects, the ability of a party to affect deputies does not depend on the strength of the party label as it does in the US case.

Lawmaking in American Legislatures: an empirical investigation

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Clinton ◽  
Mark D. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Theoretical Predictions ◽  
Observable Data ◽  
Law Making

AbstractGiven pervasive gridlock at the national level, state legislatures are increasingly the place where notable policy change occurs. Investigating such change is difficult because it is often hard to characterise policy change and use observable data to evaluate theoretical predictions; it is subsequently unclear whether law-making explanations focusing on the US Congress also apply to state legislatures. We use several measures of state policy outcomes to examine lawmaking in state legislatures across nearly two decades, and we argue for using simulation studies to connect theoretical predictions to empirical specifications and help interpret the theoretical relevance of estimated correlations. Doing so reveals that the observed law-making outcomes we study are most consistent with law-making models emphasising the importance of the chamber median and the powers of the governor rather than those that focus on the preferences of the majority party.

The US Congress and Rogue States

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shereen Kotb ◽  
Gyung-Ho Jeong
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Congressional Voting ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rogue State ◽  
High Degree

Abstract Foreign policy has become one of the most polarizing issues in American politics. This paper investigates the extent to which this division extends to arguably one of the most bipartisan foreign policy issues: policies toward rogue states. Our examination of congressional voting and sponsorship data related to rogue states since 1991 finds that, while there is a high degree of bipartisanship on the issue, there are nuanced but significant partisan differences. First, we find that Democrats are significantly more likely to support a rogue state bill dealing with human rights concerns, whereas Republicans are significantly less likely to support a conciliatory bill. We also find that members of Congress are less likely to propose and support a rogue state bill in the presence of a co-partisan president. We thus conclude that, despite the overall high degree of bipartisanship on rogue state issues, partisanship plays an important role in influencing legislative behavior.

Interaction of Ukrainian Diaspora and the USA Government Regarding Celebration of Ukrainian Independence Day on January 22

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (47) ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
Halyna Shchyhelska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Usa

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Ukrainian independence. OnJanuary 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People’s Republic proclaimed its independence by adopting the IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, although this significant event was «wiped out» from the public consciousness on the territory of Ukraine during the years of the Soviet totalitarian regime. At the same time, January 22 was a crucial event for the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA. This article examines how American Ukrainians interacted with the USA Government institutions regarding the celebration and recognition of the Ukrainian Independence day on January 22. The attention is focused on the activities of ethnic Ukrainians in the United States, directed at the organization of the special celebration of the Ukrainian Independence anniversaries in the US Congress and cities. Drawing from the diaspora press and Congressional Records, this article argues that many members of Congress participated in the observed celebration and expressed kind feelings to the Ukrainian people, recognised their fight for freedom, during the House of Representatives and Senate sessions. Several Congressmen submitted the resolutions in the US Congress urging the President of United States to designate January 22 as «Ukrainian lndependence Day». January 22 was proclaimed Ukrainian Day by the governors of fifteen States and mayors of many cities. Keywords: January 22, Ukrainian independence day, Ukrainian diaspora, USA, interaction, Congress

John Philip Sousa’s Historic Resistance to Technology in Music Learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 153660062110339
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Thibeault
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Digital Music ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Sound Recordings ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us

In this article, I explore John Philip Sousa’s historic resistance to music technology and his belief that sound recordings would negatively impact music education and musical amateurism. I review Sousa’s primary arguments from two 1906 essays and his testimony to the US Congress from the same year, based on the fundamental premise that machines themselves sing or perform, severing the connection between live listener and performer and thus rendering recordings a poor substitute for real music. Sousa coined the phrase “canned music,” and I track engagement with this phrase among the hundreds of newspapers and magazines focused on Sousa’s resistance. To better understand the construction of Sousa’s beliefs, I then review how his rich musical upbringing around the US Marine Band and the theaters of Washington DC lead to his conception of music as a dramatic ritual. And I examine the curious coda of Sousa’s life, during which he recanted his beliefs and conducted his band for radio, finding that in fact these experiences reinforced Sousa’s worries. The discussion considers how Sousa’s ideas can help us better to examine the contemporary shift to digital music by combining Sousa’s ideas with those of Sherry Turkle.

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