Ideological Primary Competition and Congressional Behavior

Abstract

Primary challenges on an incumbent’s more extreme flank have become increasingly common in congressional elections. We explore the consequences on the legislative behavior of successful incumbents following these types of challenges. We propose that the effect of extreme ideological primary challenges is conditioned on whether the member belongs to the majority or the minority party. We test our expectations on primary elections from 2000 to 2012 and corresponding changes in voting behavior in the next Congress. We find that incumbents in the majority party who have defeated an extreme ideological primary challenge are less likely to support their party, especially on key votes. We expect this reaction is because they fear appearing too moderate and thereby encouraging another extreme ideological primary challenge. We find that incumbents in the minority party who face an extreme ideological challenge do not change their general voting behavior, but are more likely to vote with their party on key votes.     

Under what conditions do ethnic minority candidates attract the ethnic minority vote? How neighbourhood and candidate characteristics affected ethnic affinity voting in the Dutch 2017 parliamentary elections

Ethnic affinity voting is the term for when political party candidates with an ethnic minority background receive a larger share of the vote in ethnically dense neighbourhoods. This study is one of the first to provide a detailed test for ethnic affinity voting during a national election in an open-list proportional representation system, with the same ballots in every polling station. It tests the conditions under which ethnic affinity voting is greater, studying the proportion of votes for ethnic minority candidates at neighbourhood level in the Netherlands in 2017, when a minority-interest party entered parliament and the traditional ethnic vote for the social democratic party (PvdA) imploded. This study disentangles party and candidate effects and finds evidence for (general and specific) ethnic affinity voting at candidate level. Even though ethnic minority candidates attract fewer votes, they perform better in neighbourhoods where more minorities live, especially when the group size of co-ethnics is larger. Ethnic affinity effects are relatively strong for candidates affiliated with minority-oriented and left-wing parties, and absent or negative for ethnic candidates of right-wing parties. Moreover, whether male or female ethnic candidates are more likely to attract the ethnic vote also depends on the ethnic background and party affiliation of the candidate.     

Neglect,Inattention, and Legislative Deficiencies: The Consequences of One-Party Deliberations in The U.S. House

Congressional scholars have conducted little research on the consequences of the majority party controlling bill formulation and excluding minority members from the legislative process. Critics of one-party deliberations use case-study evidence to argue that such processes lead to error-prone, often defective legislation. However, no large-N analysis has sought to operationalize and verify this effect. I develop new empirical strategies to explore claims about the relationship between deliberative procedures and policy outcomes. Examining legislation drafted in the U.S. House between 1987 and 2008, I find suggestive but consistent evidence of error-prone bills being developed under one-party processes.     

Identifying the Critical Members of the House of Representatives

This article combines the historical record of presidential-congressional relations with previous scholarly findings to develop a model that identifies the members of Congress whose support is critical to the president's ability to build enacting coalitions. It then analyzes the relationship between President Obama and the House of Representatives during the 113th Congress as a case study that demonstrates the model's utility. Conventional wisdom and political pundits suggest that presidents working in divided government will have impossible difficulty working with Congress, but history suggests otherwise. The president's ability to successfully build enacting coalitions during divided government requires him to perform two rather disparate tasks. First, the president must minimize the amount of presidential party members who cross party lines to vote against the president's position. Second, the president must entice at least some opposition party members to cross party lines and support the president's position. Using data from 1981 to 2015, I find that representatives’ behavior on presidential support votes are related to constituency-level presidential strength, electoral vulnerability, ideological moderation, and ideological extremity. I use these results to identify the critical members of the 113th Congress. When a majority of these critical members supported President Obama's positions his legislative efforts were successful. When a majority of these members opposed the president's positions, the House Republican majority defeated the president.     

Balancing Multiple Goals: Analyzing Votes on Free Trade Agreements in the U.S. House of Representatives

Despite increasing polarization in the House of Representatives, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) often pass not only with, but often because of, support from both parties. What explains these patterns? When do members cross party lines to support (or oppose) trade legislation? We argue that members are both ideologically and electorally motivated. Further, we argue that the relative balance of these incentives varies across the membership in meaningful ways. We examine House votes on 11 PTAs and find that ideology and district trade position have independent effects on support for free trade. We also find that the effect of trade position is conditioned by the ideology of the legislator; moderates are more responsive to their constituents' interests on trade.     

Fighting over friends and neighbors: The effect of inter-candidate geographic distance on intra-party competition

Previous studies on intra-party competition have largely neglected the role played by geographic distance between co-partisan candidates. In this study, we argue that candidates who live further away from intra-party competitors on the same party list benefit electorally from their remoteness. Moreover, we contend that the electoral effectiveness of exhibiting local personal vote attributes – a theoretically and empirically well-established candidate strategy to cultivate personal votes – also depends on the geographical proximity of localized co-partisan candidates. Using a unique and untapped dataset of more than 5,000 Finnish election candidates' home address coordinates over four consecutive parliamentary elections (1999–2011), we run beta regression models to examine the effects of candidate remoteness and nearest candidates' local characteristics on intra-party vote shares. To measure the remoteness of a particular candidate, we develop a novel index based on the distribution of co-partisans over concentric circles around that candidate. The empirical analyses show that the effect of geographic remoteness depends on local party strength and the degree of urbanization: candidates particularly benefit from more distant co-partisans in party strongholds and rural and suburban municipalities. Moreover, all models confirm that nearby located localized co-partisans decrease a candidate's own vote share. These findings have important implications for politicians' careers, party nomination strategies and future empirical research on intra-party competition.     

Ballots and billions: Clive Palmer's personal party

Founded and led by the billionaire businessman, Clive Palmer, the Palmer United Party (PUP) achieved what was arguably the best debut result of recent decades at the 2013 Australian federal election. This article examines PUP's ideology, organisation and campaigning strategies along with the implications of its experiences to date for Australian party politics. Based on an analysis of original party documents, policies, media communications and semi-structured interviews with PUP candidates and key figures across Australia, we find evidence of a party which is utterly dominated by its leader, which was deliberately never built to last, whose ideology cannot be easily classified and whose campaigning was well-funded but extremely disorganised. We conclude that its experience shows how more professionalised new personal parties in Australia should be able to do even better electorally in the future.     

Structures and Members: An Overview of The Cumann na nGaedheal Party Organisation, 1923–33

This article re‐examines Cumann na nGaedheal's approach to party organisation. Cumann na nGaedheal has been portrayed as a badly organised, ‘top‐down’ party that suffered electorally for its reluctance to match the structure and organisation of its main anti‐Treaty rival, Fianna Fáil. Moreover, the party has been caricatured as a conservative organisation with little affinity for the ideology of the Irish revolution. While recent studies have reappraised Cumann na nGaedheal's engagement with the revolutionary inheritance, while highlighting underappreciated aspects of the party's electoral innovations, its organisational structures require further scholarly attention. Closer scrutiny of Cumann na nGaedheal's organisational structures sheds further light on its fate as nationalist Ireland's first party of government and ultimately its demise as a distinct party in 1933.     

Five Factions,Two Parties: Caucus Membership in the House of Representatives, 1994–2002

This paper examines the extent of ideological cohesion and distinction of two Republican congressional factions (the conservative Republican Study Committee and the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership) and three Democratic congressional caucuses (the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, the liberal Congressional Black Caucus, and the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus) in the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2002. Whereas much of the literature on congressional caucuses has focused on the reasons members join such groups and the policy and political orientations of those groups, this paper examines how much unity exists in the voting behavior of the members of Congress who join caucuses in comparison to their fellow partisans not in a faction. Although political parties are still a major unifying force for their respective party members, we do find that factional members are more ideologically cohesive than are nonfactional members. Joining a faction is not an insignificant activity for members. Factions allow like-minded colleagues to come together and vote on common issues, at times against direction of their party.     

When Loyalty Is Tested: Do Party Leaders Use Committee Assignments as Rewards?

Theories of parties in Congress contend that one tool that party leaders possess to induce loyalty among rank-and-file members is control over committee assignments, but conventional tests of this linkage have failed to distinguish loyalty from simply voting one's preferences in accordance with party leaders. We characterize loyal legislators as having a higher propensity for voting with party leaders when it matters, even when their preferences diverge from the mainstream of their party. Testing this strong definition of loyalty on committee assignment data for 1991–2015, we show that majority party members who support their party on the subset of votes for which party leaders have taken positions in floor speeches are more likely to be rewarded with plum committee assignments, especially those members on the ideological extremes.     

From adversaries to allies: ethnic gerrymandering and ethnic party behaviour in local elections in Macedonia

Constitutional designers often construct political institutions to provide greater autonomy to ethnic minority groups. One tool available to constitutional designers is ‘ethnic gerrymandering’, where the boundaries of local government units are altered to provide greater representation to minority groups. This paper analyses the effects of changes in the ethnic composition of municipalities, which occur as a result of ethnic gerrymandering, on ethnic party behaviour. I compare ethnic party behaviour in local elections in the Republic of Macedonia from 2000 to 2013. I expand on a theory initially proposed by Sherrill Stroschein linking ethnic demography to ethnic party behaviour. I find that changes in the ethnic composition of municipalities influence whether rival ethnic parties engage in outbidding or whether ethnic communities unite behind a single ethnic party. My findings have important implications for those tasked with designing political institutions in ethnically divided societies.     

Public and Partisan Opinions of the Speaker of the House

Using polling data from 1982 to 2009, I develop a model of public opinion toward the Speaker of the House. I show that, in addition to economic and institutional factors, the speaker's ideology and events associated with the speaker's responsibilities in office affect the public's opinion toward this congressional leader. I also examine the partisan differences in the formation of public opinions about the speaker. I find that minority party partisans are more likely to have negative evaluations of the speaker when the speaker has more ideologically extreme views which lead to higher levels of polarization. In addition, members of different parties weigh economic and institutional factors differently in their evaluations of the speaker.     

Partisan Efficiency in an Open-Rule Setting: The Amending Process in the U.S. Senate, 1865–1945

Given significant differences between the House and Senate's amending processes, one would anticipate the Senate majority party to be far less successful when voting on the floor. However, recent work has demonstrated that majority party success on the Senate floor is remarkably similar to the House. We argue that an overlooked explanation for majority party success stems from its ability to control intra-party amending activity through coordination between members of the majority party. Utilizing a new data set consisting of all amendments receiving recorded roll call votes in the Senate from 1865–1945, we demonstrate that majority party extremists refrain from offering amendments despite the relative open-floor setting. Nevertheless, chamber majorities cannot restrict minority legislators from offering amendments designed to force them to cast uncomfortable votes and delay the legislative process.     

Party commitment,vote switching and liberal decline in Australia∗

Electoral outcomes are determined in part by voters who switch their political allegiance between elections. Though the subject of extensive study in other countries, this floating vote has received comparatively little attention in Australia. This paper uses 1967 and 1979 survey data to analyse vote switching in Australian elections. We argue, firstly, that turnover tables based on recalled voting are, as research in other countries has shown, inaccurate reflections of the election result. As an alternative, we propose a measure of ‘potential’ vote switching based on the concept of lifetime voting. Secondly, using this concept of lifetime voting to derive a measure of party commitment allows the construction of a three‐fold typology of Australian voters — partisans, marginals and switchers. Finally, a longitudinal analysis of the voting patterns of these three groups indicates a gradual erosion of electoral commitment to the Liberal party, whereas Labor has largely retained its partisan base.     

The environment and minor-party insurgency in Australian politics: the case of logging and the ‘liberals for forests’

It is known that many Liberal–National voters are environmentally conscious. However, the lack of importance of environmentalism in influencing voter behaviour in Australia, compared with socio-economic ideologies and issues, means that few Liberal–National identifiers are likely to find appeal in the parties which place most emphasis on protecting the natural environment, as these parties are generally Left-leaning with regard to socio-economic policy. Given the balance of influences on the vote, Liberal–National vulnerability on environmental issues would seem to be most exploitable by a Right-of-Centre environmental party. This article examines the case of the ‘liberals for forests’, a rare example of just such a party, which had some success in Western Australian State elections in 2001. The paper supports the notion that environmental issues, including those such as logging often linked with Left partisan ship, have the potential to influence vote choice, in a positive sense, on the Right as well as the Left of Australian politics. Implications for the Liberal Party and the party system are discussed.     

Environmental attitudes,environmental problems and party choice. A large-N comparative study

This study investigates the relationship between environmental attitudes and the ‘greenness’ of party choice, moderated by exposure to environmental problems such as the incidence of natural disasters and poor air quality. The ‘greenness’ of party choice is operationalised as the share of environmental policy in the parties' election manifestos. Voting for greener parties is especially important for environmental protection because greener votes are the keys to national, and eventually, global action mitigating the effects of environmental degradation. The analysis relies on the European Social Survey, the World Values Survey, the Manifesto Project Dataset, the EM-DAT dataset, as well as World Bank data, and covers 139 surveys in 38 countries between 1995 and 2016. Multilevel linear models reveal that voters with greener attitudes chose greener parties, as expected. At the same time, exposure to country-level environmental problems decreases the effect of these attitudes by significantly increasing the green vote cast by citizens not particularly concerned with the environment. It seems that non-environmental attitudes are substituted by environmental problems in increasing the ‘greenness’ of the vote. When people meet bad environmental conditions, they are more willing to take environmental action irrespective of their prior attitudes towards environment protection. This foreshadows an increasing overall emphasis on environmental issues in national party politics as more and more countries are facing the dire consequences of a degrading environment.     

Geographical Scale, the 'Feel-Good Factor' and Voting at the 1997 General Election in England and Wales

Many analysts associate voting patterns in Great Britain with electors' evaluations of the state of the economy, whereby those who think it has improved recently are likely to vote for the government's return to power, whereas those who think it has worsened are more likely to vote for an opposition party. Most of these studies consider the national economy only, but data derived from the 1997 British Election Study cross–sectional survey show strong relationships between votes and evaluations of recent changes in the electors' (self-defined) home areas. This paper relates those evaluations, and the resultant voting patterns, to the 'objective circumstances' in the respondents' home areas, using unemployment rates as an indicator of local economic well-being. Using specially devised data for 'bespoke neighbourhoods' around each respondent's home, we show that the probability of a vote against the government was a function of both 'objective conditions' and 'subjective evaluations', and that there were significant scale effects in this: people apparently reacted to very local variations when making their voting decisions.     

Leaving on a Jet Plane: Polarization,Foreign Travel,and Comity in Congress

No political observer, politician, or political scientist doubts that party polarization has weakened the social fabric of Congress. Measuring that effect, however, is exceedingly difficult. In this article, we operationalize the congressional social fabric by examining the foreign travel behavior of members of Congress over time. We evaluate the social disintegration in Congress by examining if and whether changes in member travel can explain why the social connectedness of members has waned. Using a unique dataset of foreign travel for House members from 1977 to 2012, we find that Republican House members, in particular, have altered their foreign travel patterns. Ideologically extreme members have always been less likely to take foreign trips, but extremely conservative Republican have become much more likely to travel only with co-partisans as polarization has increased in Congress. Ideologically moderate Republicans, while still traveling as members of bipartisan delegations, have also increased their willingness to travel only with fellow Republicans. Our results suggest that bipartisan foreign travel is a victim of the partisan war waging in Congress.     

Human security in Australia: public interest and political consequences

The new human security paradigm has reconceptualised security beyond traditional physical threats to encompass ‘lifestyle’ concerns, such as health and environmental security. This article uses national survey data collected in Australia in 2007 to examine how public opinion views this new paradigm and to evaluate its political consequences. The results show that the public makes a clear distinction between all four types of human security—health, the environment, national security and the economy. Longitudinal analysis shows that health and the environment have gained greater prominence with the public since 1990. Each dimension of human security has only limited roots in the social structure. However, each has important consequences for the ideological orientation of the public, and for party support. The authors conclude that as ‘lifestyle’ concerns become more prominent for the public, parties of the right will have to adapt to the new paradigm in order to ensure that they are not electorally disadvantaged.     

Campaign Promises,Democratic Governance,and Environmental Policy in the U.S. Congress

One important criterion for assessing the quality of democratic governance is the extent to which the policy process effectively translates citizen preferences into collective choices. Several scholars have observed a discrepancy between citizen preferences for strong environmental protection and weak policies adopted in the United States, indicating that the United States may fall short on this criterion. We examine one possible mechanism contributing to this discrepancy—legislator defection from campaign promises. Our data indicate that legislators in the U.S. Congress routinely defect from their campaign promises in environmental protection, undermining the link between citizen preferences and policy choice. We also find that legislators are much more likely to defect from pro‐environmental campaign promises, which moves government policy toward less stringent environmental programs. Finally, the propensity of legislators to defect from their campaign promises is systematic, with defection affected by partisanship, constituency influence, the influence of the majority party, and the likely consequences of defection for policy choice. These findings contribute empirical evidence relevant to the “mandate theory” perspective on how citizen preferences are translated into collective choices through the policy process. These findings may also complement research in comparative politics concluding that legislatures selected through single member districts adopt less stringent environmental policies than do legislatures chosen via proportional representation in that the mechanism for this effect may go through legislator defection from campaign promises.