Economic Expectations and Voting Behavior in United States House and Senate Elections

1981 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 436-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Kuklinski ◽  
Darrell M. West
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Senate Elections ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Economic Expectations

Past individual-level studies of economic voting (1) have incorrectly operationalized the model they employ by using past-oriented rather than future-oriented questions and (2) have failed to examine the level of economic voting in United States Senate elections. Using the 1978 National Election Study, we show that economic voting exists in Senate but not House elections, presumably due to the differences in electoral context. Even when economic voting occurs, however, there is no guarantee that the public will influence the direction of macroeconomic policy.

On the Issues Surrounding Economic Voting

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN R. HIBBING
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Individual

This is an analysis of the effects of economic factors on voting behavior in the United Kingdom. Aggregate- and individual-level data are used. When the results are compared to findings generated by the United States case, some intriguing differences appear. To mention just two examples, unemployment and inflation seem to be much more important in the United Kingdom than in the United States, and changes in real per capita income are positively related to election results in the United States and negatively related in the United Kingdom. More generally, while the aggregate results are strong and the individual-level results weak in the United States, in the United Kingdom the situation is practically reversed.

Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization Among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Sullivan ◽  
Pat Walsh ◽  
Michal Shamir ◽  
David G. Barnum ◽  
James L. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Members Of Parliament

In this article, we present data showing that national legislators are more tolerant than the public in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Two explanations for this phenomenon are presented and assessed. The first is the selective recruitment of Members of Parliament, Knesset and Congress from among those in the electorate whose demographic, ideological and personality characteristics predispose them to be tolerant. Although this process does operate in all four countries, it is insufficient to explain all of the differences in tolerance between elites and the public in at least three countries. The second explanation relies on a process of explicitly political socialization, leading to differences in tolerance between elites and their public that transcend individual-level, personal characteristics. Relying on our analysis of political tolerance among legislators in the four countries, we suggest how this process of political socialization may be operating.

From Public to Publics

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amnon Cavari ◽  
Guy Freedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Research Design ◽  
General Public ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors

A rich body of work examines the public agenda in democratic countries. These studies rely on aggregate responses to survey questions that ask respondents to report their issue priorities—commonly using topline data of the most important problem survey series (MIP). This research design, however, is not sensitive to differences in issue priorities between individuals and groups and, therefore, fails to account for the possible variation within the general public. To overcome this neglect in existing literature, we examine individual-level responses to the most important problem question in two countries—the United States and Israel—focusing specifically on economic and foreign policy priorities. We reveal that beyond aggregate trends in the public agenda, socio-demographic factors in both countries explain some of the variation in issue dynamics.

The Influence of Political Discussion on Policy Preference: A comparison of the United States and Japan

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEAN RICHEY ◽  
KEN'ICHI IKEDA
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Network ◽  
The United States ◽  
Network Size ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Policy Preference ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Election Study ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Social Network Influence

This research tests if political discussion influences policy preference. The literature greatly stresses the non-rational nature of political decision-making. Rational policy preferences require learning specific details in a competitive political environment. Yet, research shows that most people do not have the skills to understand policy. Social networking is one way to help people understand policy. Social network influence on policy preferences, however, is mostly ignored. We show that the likelihood of supporting a policy increases when one's social network supports a party that advocates that policy. We control for the political knowledge of the respondent, network size, partisanship, ideology, socioeconomic, and policy-specific determinants. Examining data from the 2000 American National Election Study and Japanese Election Study 3, we find strong results in the United States, but mixed results in Japan. Additional research we perform shows a stronger social network influence in Japan.

IdentityversusIdentity: Israel and Evangelicals and the Two-Front War for Jewish Votes

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric M. Uslaner ◽  
Mark Lichbach
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Election Study ◽  
American Jews ◽  
Democratic Attitudes ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
American National Election Study

AbstractRepublicans made major efforts to win a larger share of the Jewish vote in 2004 by emphasizing their strong support for Israel. They partially succeeded, but did not make a dent in the overall loyalty of American Jews to the Democratic party, since they lost approximately as many votes because of Jews' negative reactions to the party's evangelical base. We argue that both Israel and worries over evangelical influence in the country reflect concerns about Jewish identity, above and beyond disagreements on specific social issues. We compare American Jewish voting behavior and liberalism to the voting behavior of non-Jews in 2004 using a survey of Jews from the National Jewish Democratic Coalition and the American National Election Study. For non-Jews, attitudes toward evangelicals are closely linked to social issues, but for Jews this correlation is small. The Jewish reaction to evangelicals is more of an issue of identity and the close ties of evangelicals to the Republican Party keep many Jews Democratic. Attitudes toward evangelicals are far more important for Jewish voting behavior than for non-Jewish voters.

Immigrant Resentment and Voter Fraud Beliefs in the U.S. Electorate

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Udani ◽  
David C. Kimball
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Public Beliefs ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
American National Election Study ◽  
Immigration Politics ◽  
Voter Fraud

Public beliefs about the frequency of voter fraud are frequently cited to support restrictive voting laws in the United States. However, some sources of public beliefs about voter fraud have received little attention. We identify two conditions that combine to make anti-immigrant attitudes a strong predictor of voter fraud beliefs. First, the recent growth and dispersion of the immigrant population makes immigration a salient consideration for many Americans. Second, an immigrant threat narrative in political discourse linking immigration to crime and political dysfunction has been extended to the voting domain. Using new data from a survey module in the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and the 2012 American National Election Study, we show that immigrant resentment is strongly associated with voter fraud beliefs. Widespread hostility toward immigrants helps nourish public beliefs about voter fraud and support for voting restrictions in the United States. The conditions generating this relationship in public opinion likely exist in other nations roiled by immigration politics. The topic of fraudulent electoral practices will likely continue to provoke voters to call to mind groups that are politically constructed as “un-American.”

Patrimonial Economic Voting and Asset Value – New Evidence from Taxation Register Data

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 825-842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Persson ◽  
Johan Martinsson
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Economic Voting ◽  
Register Data ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Asset Value ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Data Files ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Opinions

Recent research on economic voting has moved beyond the traditional reward–punishment hypothesis, according to which the economy is merely considered a valence issue. Instead, patrimonial economic voting research looks at voters as property owners within the economic system. These studies have relied on survey items that measure whether individuals own different kinds of property to test the patrimonial dimension. This study emphasizes the importance of a surprisingly neglected aspect: the value of assets. It uses official register data files from the Swedish Tax Agency on the value of individuals’ assets merged with survey data from the 2006 Swedish National Election Study. The study finds that the relationship between patrimony and voting behavior in Sweden is similar to that found in other countries, but only when it is tested in a similar way as in these studies – that is, only when it is coded as whether voters own different assets. This study brings three important contributions to the debate. First, it offers a new empirically based categorization of the dimensionality of asset ownership and shows that the previous distinction between low- and high-risk assets is insufficient. Secondly, it shows that merely having assets or not, which is what previous studies have measured, is not what primarily matters; the relevant factor is the value of the assets. And thirdly, it demonstrates that only the value of some kinds of assets matters (especially stocks and real estate properties), while other assets (savings in bonds and funds) do not affect voting behavior or political opinions.

Does the Public Hold Governors Accountable for Policy Outcomes?

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110410
Author(s):  
Jennifer Wolak ◽  
Srinivas Parinandi
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
State Level ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Data Source

What are the origins of gubernatorial popularity? Past studies debate whether governors are substantively evaluated based on their performance in office, with some arguing that the origins of approval may be idiosyncratic to particular governors. These studies typically consider gubernatorial approval in a handful of states or patterns of approval in the aggregate. We improve on this research by drawing on a richer data source: the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We consider both individual-level and state-level explanations of gubernatorial popularity with a sample of over 300,000 respondents across the 50 states from 2006 to 2018. We explore how party, policy outcomes, and government performance shape levels of gubernatorial approval. We show that people evaluate governors based on the ideological direction of policy outcomes in the states. When state policy outcomes align with their ideological preferences, people report higher levels of approval for the job performance of their governor. We also confirm the importance of party and state economic performance for gubernatorial approval.

Battling Procedural Windmills: Introductions of Proposals to Change U.S. Senate Procedure

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-129
Author(s):  
Jakub Dopieralla
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Procedural Change ◽  
The Way

Procedural change in Congress, especially in the United States Senate, has been studied quite extensively over the last thirty years. One of the most remarkable aspects of Senate procedural change is the extremely low likelihood that any proposals to change the way the Senate conducts its business will actually pass the relevant procedures and become part of either the Standing Rules of the Senate, or other sources of the procedural outlay. Being fully aware of this, however, senators continue to introduce scores of proposals that deal with many different aspects of the procedural environment, despite the negligible chance of any of them being accepted or even gaining attention from fellow lawmakers or the public. This paper looks at these ‘dead on arrival’ proposals, and tries to provide an explanation for the proposals, grounded in theories that deal with legislators’ building of their personal brands, aimed at helping their chances of re-election.

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