The Forgotten Doctrine of Enumerated Powers

Professor Diamond's essay is an elaboration of his remarks ata Woodrow Wilson Center evening dialogue on the question "HowShould Authority, Responsibility, and Resources be AllocatedAmong the Levels of Our Federal System?" Though he appears atfirst to confine his observations to that particular two-hourdiscussion, it soon becomes clear that his interest ranges morebroadly to "much of the contemporary public discussion of federalism."His concern is that the traditional concept—indeed, theconstitutional—basis of this discussion has been severelyeroded (Ed.).     

Comparing Group and Subgroup Cohesion Scores: A Nonparametric Method with an Application to Brazil

This article builds a nonparametric method for inference fromroll-call cohesion scores. Cohesion scores have been a stapleof legislative studies since the publication of Rice's 1924thesis. Unfortunately, little effort has been dedicated to understandingtheir statistical properties or relating them to existing modelsof legislative behavior. I show how a common use of cohesionscores, testing for distinct voting blocs, is severely biasedtoward Type I error, practically guaranteeing significant findingseven when the null hypothesis is correct. I offer a nonparametricmethod—permutation analysis—that solves the biasproblem and provides for simple and intuitive inference. I demonstratewith an examination of roll-call voting data from the BrazilianNational Congress.     

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

e-mail: gjeong{at}artsci.wustl.edu This paper develops a procedure for locating proposals and legislatorsin a multidimensional policy space by applying agenda-constrainedideal point estimation. Placing proposals and legislators onthe same scale allows an empirical test of the predictions ofthe spatial voting model. I illustrate this procedure by testingthe predictive power of the uncovered set—a solution conceptof the multidimensional spatial voting model—using rollcall data from the U.S. Senate. Since empirical tests of thepredictive power of the uncovered set have been limited to experimentaldata, this is the first empirical test of the concept's predictivepower using real-world data. Author's note: An earlier version of this paper was presentedat the 2006 Annual Meeting of Political Methodology Society.I am grateful to Andrew Martin, Gary Miller, Dan O'Neill, DavidPark, Robert Walker, and three anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful comments. I am especially indebted to Gary Miller forhis insights and advice. All remaining errors are my own.     

Introduction: Gender, Citizenship and Participation: Opportunities and Obstacles in the Twenty-first Century Politics

THIS special half issue of Parliamentary Affairs brings togetherseveral pertinent themes that have been the source of debate—academicand broader—in recent years. We hear much about the ‘crisisof participation’ in which ‘traditional’ formsof political activity attract the participation of ever-decreasingnumbers, although the extent to which this is a ‘natural’development of social change or the result of political bankruptcyremains to be decided. While, for     

Collective Action and Citizen Responses to Global Warming

This paper expands the relevance of the collective interest model of mass political action to explain collective-action behavior in the context of global warming and climate change. The analysis is an attempt to answer Ostrom’s call for a behavioral model of collective action that can be generalized beyond political protest to other collective-action problems. We elaborate, specify, and empirically test a collective interest model approach to citizen policy support, environmental political participation, and environmental behavior related to the issue of global warming. Key elements of the collective interest model—perceived risk, personal efficacy, and environmental values—are found to be directly, and positively, related to support of government policies and personal behaviors that affect global warming. We also discuss the links between the collective interest model and other important approaches to political behavior.

Publication Bias Reconsidered

In political science and many other disciplines, statisticallysignificant results—rejections of the null hypothesis—areachieved more frequently in published than in unpublished studies.Such "publication bias" is generally seen as the consequenceof a widespread prejudice against statistically nonsignificantresults. I argue that evidence of such a prejudice is in surprisinglyshort supply and that publication bias can occur even in theabsence of such a prejudice and even if the review process isfunctioning perfectly. More importantly, publication bias maystem from dutiful application of standards of scientific inquiryrather than from irrational prejudice.     

Using Auxiliary Data to Estimate Selection Bias Models, with an Application to Interest Group Use of the Direct Initiative Process

Recent work in survey research has made progress in estimatingmodels involving selection bias in a particularly difficultcircumstance—all nonrespondents are unit nonresponders,meaning that no data are available for them. These models arereasonably successful in circumstances where the dependent variableof interest is continuous, but they are less practical empiricallywhen it is latent and only discrete outcomes or choices areobserved. I develop a method in this article to estimate thesemodels that is much more practical in terms of estimation. Themodel uses a small amount of auxiliary information to estimatethe selection equation parameters, which are then held fixedwhile estimating the equation of interest parameters in a maximum-likelihoodsetting. After presenting Monte Carlo analyses to support themodel, I apply the technique to a substantive problem: Whichinterest groups are likely to to be involved in support of potentialinitiatives to achieve their policy goals?     

Which Electoral Formula Is the Most Proportional? A New Look with New Evidence

A ranking exists in electoral systems research of differentelectoral formulas—the mathematical functions governingthe conversion of votes into legislative seats—in termsof both proportionality of seats and votes and favorabilityto the largest party. I reexamine this issue with new methodsand new evidence, attempting to cross-validate previous rankingsusing a larger and more controlled data set and more preciseparametric methods than have been applied previously. The resultsby and large confirm previous knowledge but also illuminateseveral important new facets obscured in previous investigations.For example, at common ranges of district magnitude (from 5to 15 seats), it is shown that electoral formula may matterat least as much as district magnitude in shaping proportionality.     

Reconsidering the Measurement of Political Knowledge

Political knowledge has emerged as one of the central variablesin political behavior research, with numerous scholars devotingconsiderable effort to explaining variance in citizens' levelsof knowledge and to understanding the consequences of this variancefor representation. Although such substantive matters continueto receive exhaustive study, questions of measurement also warrantattention. I demonstrate that conventional measures of politicalknowledge—constructed by summing a respondent's correctanswers on a battery of factual items—are of uncertainvalidity. Rather than collapsing incorrect and "don't know"responses into a single absence-of-knowledge category, I introduceestimation procedures that allow these effects to vary. Grouped-datamultinomial logistic regression results demonstrate that incorrectanswers and don't knows perform dissimilarly, a finding thatsuggests deficiencies in the construct validity of conventionalknowledge measures. The likely cause of the problem is tracedto two sources: knowledge may not be discrete, meaning thata simple count of correct answers provides an imprecise measure;and, as demonstrated by the wealth of research conducted inthe field of educational testing and psychology since the 1930s,measurement procedures used in political science potentiallyresult in "knowledge" scales contaminated by systematic personalityeffects.     

New State Equality: The Ambiguous History of a Constitutional Principle

In Coyle v. Smith (1911), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled thatCongress could not impose admissions conditions on new statesthat detracted from their equal standing in the union. Previously,the Court had deferred to Congress' authority over federal territoryand over its own membership. Before the Civil War, federal interestsin new states—particularly with respect to public lands—weresecured through admissions conditions. Later, however, admissions"compacts" became increasingly redundant; the Court groundedfederal property claims in the new states on the "rules andregulations" provision of the Constitution. Meanwhile, in aseries of decisions, the Court began to uphold the "municipalsovereignty" of the territories against congressional interference.Congress' authority in the territories was progressively limitedto that of acting as "trustee" for future states. These doctrinaldevelopments culminated in Coyle. The Court challenged Congress'right to set invidious admission conditions and asserted itsown jurisdiction over the state-making process. The new stateequality principle thus became "constitutional" as the Courtextended its authority. I wish to thank Herman Belz, University of Maryland, for helpfulcriticism.     

Iterative Approaches to R x C Ecological Inference Problems: Where They Can Go Wrong and One Quick Fix

This article argues that a key step in King's iterative approachto R x C ecological inference problems—the aggregationof groups into broad conglomerate categories—can introduceproblems of aggregation bias and multimodality into data, inducingmodel violations. As a result, iterative EI estimates can beconsiderably biased, even when the original data conform tothe assumptions of the model. I demonstrate this problem intuitivelyand through simulations, show the conditions under which itis likely to arise, and illustrate it with the example of Colouredvoting during the 1994 elections in South Africa. I then proposean easy fix to the problem, demonstrating the usefulness ofthe fix both through simulations and in the specific South Africancontext.     

Campaign Activism and the Spatial Model: Getting Beyond Extremism to Explain Policy Motivated Participation

To date, most models of policy motivated campaign participation claim participation derives from the intensity or extremism of one’s policy views. I approach the policy motivation differently, generalizing the logic of proximity voting to model policy motivated campaign participation. Modeling participation as a function of extremism captures the activist’s policy preferences and suggests those with strong preferences participate more, while modeling participation as a function of proximity captures both the activist’s policy preferences and the relevant comparisons to the positions of the candidates. Noting the two alternatives lead to different predictions about variation in individual participation beyond turnout (e.g. campaign activities), I find consistent support for a proximity model of activism and I find no independent effect of extremism once I control for proximity. Moreover, the proximity model’s predictions about ideological responsiveness to changes in the candidates’ locations over time prove robust, while predictions based solely on ideological extremism do not.

Devolution in the United Kingdom: Statehood and Citizenship in Transition

The United Kingdom evolved as a "state of unions," in whichgovernment arrangements were territorially varied in line withthe particular circumstances of the sequence of acts of unionbetween the core state territory of England and Wales, Scotland,and Ireland. The recent devolution reforms have built on thatterritorial nonuniformity, embedding a number of idiosyncrasiesinto the devolved UK state: a lopsidedness that leaves the biggestand wealthiest part of the United Kingdom—England—governedcentrally wihle the non-English nations have devolved government,devolved government arrangements for those nations that aremarkedly asymmetrical, and an underdeveloped system of intergovernmentalrelations connecting United Kingdom—level and devolvedpolitical arenas. Together these issues pose important questionsof whether the devolution reforms amount to a coherent overallpackage, whether the reforms are stable, and whether they erodea common UK citizenship.     

Social Policy and Social Citizenship: Britain's Welfare States

In Britain the imagery and rhetoric of the postwar welfare stateremain powerful—citizens should have equal access to publicservices based on need not place of residence. Devolution issometimes depicted as a threat to this tradition. This articleshows that the immediate risk of a social policy race to thebottom is small. Moreover, because of the peculiarities of Britishterritorial politics the traditional imagery was never borneout in practice; the article traces policy variation beforeand after devolution. Finally, locating British social policywithin the comparative framework of "nationalization" and "citizenship,"I argue that Britain lost its status as an exemplary welfarestate partly because it failed to provide an adequate territorialframework for the development of social policy.     

The Federal Role in State Fiscal Stress

This article examines the extent to which the federal government'spolicies were responsible for the fiscal stress experiencedby most state governments in the early 1990s. Federal policieshave contributed considerably to recent state fiscal stress,particularly through the Medicaid program—the fastestgrowing part of state budgets—and the recession, whichdepressed revenue and increased welfare and Medicaid spending.Federal aid reductions have not been an important source ofrecent state fiscal stress. The real value of per capita federalaid other than for welfare programs fell considerably in the1980s, but the reductions were much greater for local governmentsthan for states. The largest reductions were in the early 1980s.Federal policies have affected state finances in several otherways—through tax policy, unfunded mandates, and the federalfailure to cope effectively with problems like health and poverty.Federal court rulings have also caused budget problems (as havestate court decisions). In some respects, state fiscal problemsare not a federal responsibility. Rising school enrollments,new corrections policies, and inelastic tax systems have createdfiscal stress for many states. Excessive state spending in the1980s has contributed to recent fiscal problems in some states,but not generally.     

Estimation and Inference Are Missing Data Problems: Unifying Social Science Statistics via Bayesian Simulation

Bayesian simulation is increasingly exploited in the socialsciences for estimation and inference of model parameters. Butan especially useful (if often overlooked) feature of Bayesiansimulation is that it can be used to estimate any function ofmodel parameters, including "auxiliary" quantities such as goodness-of-fitstatistics, predicted values, and residuals. Bayesian simulationtreats these quantities as if they were missing data, samplingfrom their implied posterior densities. Exploiting this principlealso lets researchers estimate models via Bayesian simulationwhere maximum-likelihood estimation would be intractable. Bayesiansimulation thus provides a unified solution for quantitativesocial science. I elaborate these ideas in a variety of contexts:these include generalized linear models for binary responsesusing data on bill cosponsorship recently reanalyzed in PoliticalAnalysis, item—response models for the measurement ofrespondent's levels of political information in public opinionsurveys, the estimation and analysis of legislators' ideal pointsfrom roll-call data, and outlier-resistant regression estimatesof incumbency advantage in U.S. Congressional elections     

Non-Majoritarian Democracy: A Comparison of Federal and Consociational Theories

In an earlier attempt to compare federalism and consociationalism,I found that, both conceptually and empirically, they do notcoincide but that they do overlap to a significant extent. Inthis second comparison, my point of departure is that both conceptsentail a rejection of majoritarian democracy. Eight characteristicsof non-majoritarian democracy—or consensus democracy—canbe identified: (1) executive power sharing, (2) balanced executive-legislativerelations, (3) strong bicameralism, (4) multiparty system, (5)multi-dimensional party system, (6) proportional representation,(7) federalism and decentralization, and (8) a written constitutionand minority veto. Consociational theorists tend to emphasizethe non-majoritarian attributes of power sharing, proportionalrepresentation, and multi-partyism, whereas federal theoristsstress the non-majoritarian characteristics of strong bicameralismand rigid constitutions, in addition to federalism itself. Asimilar pattern is revealed by a factor analysis of these variablesin twenty-two democratic regimes. Although consociationalismand federalism are non-majoritarian in nature, they representclearly different dimensions of non-majoritarianism.     

Presidential Elections and the Stock Market: Comparing Markov-Switching and Fractionally Integrated GARCH Models of Volatility

Bumba Mukherjee Department of Political Science, Florida State University, 554 Bellamy Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306 e-mail: smukherj{at}mailer.fsu.edu Existing research on electoral politics and financial marketspredicts that when investors expect left parties—Democrats(US), Labor (UK)—to win elections, market volatility increases.In addition, current econometric research on stock market volatilitysuggests that Markov-switching models provide more accuratevolatility forecasts and fit stock price volatility data betterthan linear or nonlinear GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditionalheteroskedasticity) models. Contrary to the existing literature,we argue here that when traders anticipate that the Democraticcandidate will win the presidential election, stock market volatilitydecreases. Using two data sets from the 2000 U.S. presidentialelection, we test our claim by estimating several GARCH, exponentialGARCH (EGARCH), fractionally integrated exponential GARCH (FIEGARCH),and Markov-switching models. We also conduct extensive forecastingtests—including RMSE and MAE statistics as well as realizedvolatility regressions—to evaluate these competing statisticalmodels. Results from forecasting tests show, in contrast toprevailing claims, that GARCH and EGARCH models provide substantiallymore accurate forecasts than the Markov-switching models. Estimatesfrom all the statistical models support our key prediction thatstock market volatility decreases when traders anticipate aDemocratic victory.     

Introduction

PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS was first published by the Hansard Societyin the winter of 1947, one of the coldest in Britain’shistory. At the time representative politics in general—andwhat many still referred to as ‘the mother of Parliaments’in particular—apparently enjoyed considerable popularprestige. It was not just Winston Churchill who, as he pointedout in the journal’s first issue, was conscious of ‘theunique and decisive contribution made by Parliament to the Britishwar effort’. Those busy building Labour’s post-warNew Jerusalem were, moreover, impressed by the extent to whichsuch a long-established political system could be put to     

Diffusion and Diversity: Federalism and the Right to Die in the Fifty States

Right-to-die issues—from the right to have life-sustainingtreatment withdrawn to the right to assisted suicide—arebecoming important sources of state policy activity. Withoutmuch federal instruction, some state courts have constructeda general consensus position for other courts to follow usingthe federal Constitution to legitimize their decisions. Statelegislatures have accomplished less. Statutory diversity wasthe rule until recently, with legislatures passing a rich varietyof generally conservative rules. Lately, with the pressure fromrights-oriented interest groups and professional organizations,state legislators have been edging closer to the more liberalpattern of policy charted by judges of the state supreme courts.Policymaking that applies to assisted suicide may be expectedto follow the same pattern: the federal government will remainsilent while the state courts take the lead using the U.S. Constitutionas ammunition. The state legislatures can be expected to trailbehind, catching up to the courts only after statutory diversityis found wanting.