American Politics Research current issue

Are Mapmakers Able to Target and Protect Congressional Incumbents?: The Institutional Dynamics of Electoral Competition

Murphy, C., Yoshinaka, A. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:44 PDT

Can those in charge of redistricting foster electoral competitiveness by targeting some congressional incumbents while protecting others from potent competition? We provide an answer by presenting the dynamic redistricting thesis, which holds that the type of redistricting plan and the time passed since its enactment affect the emergence of high-quality congressional candidates. We demonstrate that the effect of redistricting on competition depends on whether incumbents belong to the party that controlled the redistricting process. We show that partisan plans have predictable systematic effects, with incumbents in the minority more likely to face strong opponents. Moreover, the effect of redistricting on competition is highest at the beginning of the 10-year redistricting cycle and diminishes in a nonlinear fashion over the course of the cycle. The implications of our theory and findings for democracy are apparent: Institutions are an important determinant of the variation of electoral competition across time and space.

Delegation and Discretion in Anticipation of Coalitional Drift

Ainsworth, S. H., Harward, B. M. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:45 PDT

If legislators are sensitive to coalitional drift, they must perforce be forward looking. In this article, we propose that legislators anticipate change in government—and any associated coalitional drift. That is, legislators recognize that the government could move from unified to divided or divided to unified. As such, how legislators structure an agency’s discretion may be affected by the current partisan control of the Congress and the White House as well as their anticipated partisan control. Using U.S. trade legislation data from 1890 to 1990, we find strong empirical evidence that legislators alter agency discretion prior to changes in the political status quo.

Proclaiming Trade Policy: "Delegated Unilateral Powers" and the Limits on Presidential Unilateral Enactment of Trade Policy

Rottinghaus, B., Lim, E. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:45 PDT

This article examines presidential proclamations on trade policy, a category of presidential unilateral power that we call delegated unilateral power that is used frequently in creating or modifying trade policy, between the period 1974 and 2006 and tests the boundaries of the explanations predicted by the unilateral powers literature. We also find that the use of proclamations on trade policy is independent of the partisan balance in Congress. The use of proclamations modifying policies was the only tactic that comported with predicted actions from the unilateral presidency. Therefore, contrary to the expectations of the unilateral presidency, presidents are not unrestrained political agents on trade policy, and although presidents have the capacity to do so, they rarely use political factors as a pretext to enact unilateral policy on trade. Ultimately, unilateral powers are not all created equal, as some allow for considerable presidential authority and some are more limited.

Adopting Direct Democracy: Tests of Competing Explanations of Institutional Change

Lawrence, E. D., Donovan, T., Bowler, S. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:45 PDT

Why was direct democracy adopted in some U.S. states and not others? In this article, we sort through the various arguments advanced in the predominantly historical literature by using event history analysis. Among other factors we identify the importance of popular support for Populists and Socialists as well as the constraints imposed by state constitutions. We also find that the demographic composition of states was strongly associated with success or failure to adopt the initiative. Furthermore, we identify a number of key cases—highlighted by this approach—that present intriguing anomalies to the general patterns identified in the historical and political science literatures to date.

Value Preferences and Ideological Structuring of Attitudes in American Public Opinion

Swedlow, B., Wyckoff, M. L. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:45 PDT

In this study, we investigate four attitudinal structures (including liberal, conservative, and libertarian configurations) associated with two ideological dimensions among American voters and demonstrate that these attitudinal structures are related in expected ways to differential preferences for the values of freedom, order, and equality/caring. Liberals are inclined to trade freedom for equality/caring but not for order, whereas conservatives are their opposites—willing to trade freedom for order but not for equality/caring. In contrast, libertarians are generally less willing than others to trade freedom for either order or equality/caring (although they probably prefer order to equality/caring). The fourth ideological type is more willing than the others to relinquish freedom, preferring both order and equality/caring. Depending on how our results are interpreted, this fourth type may be characterized as either communitarian or humanitarian. These findings help close the gap between unidimensional conceptions and multidimensional evidence of ideological organization in political attitudes by demonstrating that value structure and attitudinal structure are strongly related in two ideological dimensions.

The Effect of Local Political Context on How Americans Vote

Dyck, J. J., Gaines, B. J., Shaw, D. R. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:45 PDT

Neighborhood context could condition voting decisions, but systematic investigation of whether (how) the traits of a given locale shape individual voting decisions is sparse. We explore the possibility that local partisan balance affects turnout and the use of convenience voting in particular. Using comprehensive registered-voter lists from four swing states in the 2002 and 2006 elections, we find an intriguing asymmetry: Republican registrants are usually sensitive to partisan context, whereas Democrats are not. Republican election-day turnout rates generally decrease with the proportion of partisan registrants that are Democratic in the area. This demobilization is only sporadically counterbalanced by greater use of convenience voting. In contrast, Democrats exhibit less systematic patterns. In many cases, there are seemingly perverse effects, wherein Democratic turnout rates fall with growing Democratic registration advantages. The asymmetry may be driven by differences in the competitiveness of elections in areas with notable imbalances in partisan registration.

Punctuated Budgets and Governors' Institutional Powers

Breunig, C., Koski, C. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:45 PDT

State budgets are flexible: In the same year, some budget categories dramatically rise or fall, whereas others closely follow the previous year’s appropriation. Public policy scholars label a budget that contains mainly small scale changes interspersed with dramatic fluctuations as punctuated. This research seeks to identify the determinants of these punctuated budgets in the American states. What causes both incremental and large scale budgetary change? We argue that a governor’s agenda setting and veto powers increase the extent to which state budgets are punctuated. First, institutionally strong governors can dominate budgetary agendas but are subject to heightened information costs. Second, strong governors can also block legislative alternatives, but thereby induce transactions costs that hinder fiscal policy adjustments. The article analyzes these institutional constraints at the American state level using maximum likelihood estimation on panel data from 1983 to 1999. We make two contributions to the study of American public policy. First, we offer a broad empirical analysis of the causes of punctuated change. Second, we present a method by which to measure punctuated distributions over time. This method can be applied to other areas of public policy research.