Ideology,voting, and shirking

Since we first raised the issue in 1979, scholars have addressed two questions regarding ideology and congressional voting. Does ideology have an impact on such voting? Do representatives shirk by voting their own ideology rather than their constituents' interests? For the first question, it appears that there is a consensus that ideology does matter, although we present some confirming evidence for 1980. The second question has been confused; some think that ideology and shirking are identical, although they are logically separate categories. We show that even if ideological shirking exists, it is relatively unimportant. We also show that self interested (non-ideological) shirking exists. We conclude that research efforts to untangle constituents' and representatives' separate ideologies have been misguided and that further efforts to examine the determinants of constituent ideology should be pursued.     

Check bouncing and fiscal irresponsibility: Evidence of nonideological shirking by legislators

Kalt and Zupan have measured ideological shirking by legislators. Here we present evidence concerning nonideological shirking. We demonstrate that representatives with more overdrawn checks tend to be more fiscally irresponsible, with fiscal irresponsibility measured by National Taxpayer Union ratings and by representatives' voting behavior on the recent House balanced budget amendment vote.     

If you can't please everyone,must you only please yourself?

Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 8221, U.S.A. Shirking models, especially those of Kalt and Zupan, have demonstrated that Senators often vote contrary to their constituents' ideology. These models establish two components of Senators' ideology through a regression of constituency demographics on interest group ratings. The predicted scores are constituency attitudes while the residuals are Senators' personal ideologies. Senators' personal ideology is presumed to be independent of constituency factors. The use of demographics is problematic, because it is unclear that they are good surrogates for attitudes. Using statewide estimates of ideology from public opinion surveys, I show that demographics provide reasonable estimates of public attitudes. However, estimates of shirking from public opinion depend upon constituency characteristics, a finding that is inconsistent with shirking models based upon residualization. The existing shirking models depend heavily upon a legislator's party as a key component of constituency opinion. But party is an attribute of the Senator and not of the electorate. A better interpretation is that Senators respond to their fellow partisans in the electorate.     

PREDICTING STATE ABORTION LEGISLATION FROM U.S. SENATE VOTES: THE EFFECTS OF APPARENT IDEOLOGICAL SHIRKING

The recent Supreme Court decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services giving more discretion to states to regulate abortion has led to speculation concerning which states might move to limit abortions. Medoff (1989) attempts to predict how state legislatures might vote on state-level abortion legislation by examining the 1983 Senate vote on the Hatch/Eagleton Amendment. We expand upon Medoff's analysis by incor- porating recent developments in agency theory as it applies to the political agents (i.e., Senators) in the empirical model. The results demonstrate that accounting for Senatorial "shirking" and state ideology substantially im- proves the predictive ability of the model for the Senate abortion vote. The predicted votes of the state's Senators, after eliminating the effects of apparent Senatorial shirking, are used to infer the likelihood of state-level legislation substantially restricting abortion. We compare these results to a base model that ignores the issue of shirking and find increased predict- ability and several differing results.     

The ideological component of Senate voting: Different principles or different principals?

Evidence exists on both sides of the question of whether or not legislator-specific, ideologically-driven shirking of constituent interest occurs. In this paper, we use a well-known model of such shirking by senators as our point of departure and add measures of inter-state constituent interests, the role of campaign contributions and, hence, the importance of whether or not senators are up for reelection. We find some evidence that the model provides a stronger explanation for senators up for reelection than for those who are not and that campaign contributions help determine voting decisions by these legislators. Finally, accounting for inter-state constituent interests, shirking is not a significant variable in the voting decisions of senators facing reelection. Thus, it appears that the reelection interests of some senators have been mistaken for ideologically-driven shirking.     

Political shirking and the last term problem: Evidence for a party-administered pension system

Studies of political shirking have disagreed both over whether the voting behavior of Members of Congress changes in their last term, and over the manner in which last term shirking can be controlled: through electoral sorting, or through a pension system. This paper presents evidence that Members of Congress who leave the House to run for statewide office do alter their voting behavior between the two sessions of their last House term, and that this change includes an ideological shift toward their state party delegations. The results suggest that a party-driven pension system influences the voting of House members who aspire to higher office, but that the pension system is not sufficient to control the last term shirking likely to occur if term limitations were imposed on House members.     

The sources of tactical voting in British parliamentary elections, 1983–1987

Using data from the UK General Election Surveys of 1983 and 1987, we present a critical test of different approaches to tactical voting. Specifically, we are concerned with how the competitive situation in each constituency affects voters' likelihood of voting tactically, as well as the role of voters' attitudes and personal characteristics. We find that voters are less sensitive to the actual marginality of a district than to whether or not their party has a chance of winning the seat. In addition, we find that party identification, and particularly intense loyalty, dampen the tendency to vote tactically, regardless of the type of district. We also consider differences in tactical voting between constituencies where Labour dominates vs. districts where the Conservatives are strongest. Finally, we discuss the broader implications of these findings for the study of voting behavior.A previous version of this paper was presented at the 1991 meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington, March 1991.     

Searching for Symptoms of Political Shirking: Congressional Foreign Travel

Despite the hypothesized propensity for shirking to marklegislative institutions, the evidence is rather equivocal;moreover, most of the research has focused exclusively onlegislator voting, thereby constraining whatevergeneralizations might emerge. The purpose of this paper is tocontribute to the debate over the question of politicalshirking by extending the range of phenomena examined toinclude congressional foreign travel. Our analysis providesevidence that opportunism is a problem in Congress. We findthat last-period problems have arisen in the area of foreigntravel, and that increased scrutiny to the problem on the partof Congress only shifted consumption patterns, i.e.,legislators began taking foreign junkets near, but not at theend of, their legislative careers. Not all foreign travelshould be construed as worthless junketing since there isstrong evidence that some foreign travel is related tomembers' responsibilities on congressional committees.     

Coalition-Targeted Duvergerian Voting: How Expectations Affect Voter Choice under Proportional Representation

Inspired by analyses of majoritarian systems, students of consensual polities have analyzed strategic voting due to barriers to party success, namely, district magnitude and threshold. Given the prevalence of coalition governments in proportional systems, we analyze a type of strategic voting seldom studied: how expected coalition composition affects voter choice. We identify Duvergerian behavior by voters targeted at the coalition formation stage. We contend that when voters perceive their preferred party as unlikely to participate in the coalition, they often desert it and instead support the lesser of evils among those they perceive as viable coalition partners. We demonstrate our argument using data on coalition expectations from the 2006 Israeli elections. We find an appreciable albeit differential effect of coalition expectations on voter choice. Importantly, results hold controlling for ideological and coalition preferences. Lastly, we explore a broad cross-national comparison, showing that there is less, not more, proximity voting where coalitions are prevalent.     

The Changing Impact of Electoral Structure on Black Representation in the South, 1970–1996

For many years voting rights litigation has focused on eliminationof at-large elections and the creation of ``majority-minority''districts – election districts where a majority of the electorateare racial/ethnic minorities. Numerous studies have analyzed theimpact of district elections on minority representation,particularly the election of blacks in the South. Most of thesestudies have focused on a single time period, comparing the ratioof black representatives to black population across cities withdifferent electoral schemes. The present study combines data fromsix different data sets to produce a panel of data covering fivedistinct time periods over a 26 year span. Cross-sectionalestimates of the effect of district elections in each time periodare compared to determine how the efficacy of district electionshas changed over time. To control for possible selection bias,inter-temporal models of the impact of changes in electionstructure on changes in representation are also estimated.     

What accounts for Duverger's law? The behavioral mechanisms underpinning two-party convergence in India

Duverger's Law states the single-member district plurality rules should produce two-party competition. In district-level election races where this expectation holds, what political behaviors—ranging from elites' strategic formation of political parties to voters' strategic abandonment of losing candidates—account for these outcomes? Using data from state elections in India, this article demonstrates that no single mechanism accounts for most electoral outcomes consistent with Duverger's Law. However, mechanisms related to the behavior elites, far more than voters, produce convergence on two-party competition. This article uncovers relatively little evidence of outcomes driven by strategic voting, instead finding that much of the convergence on two parties is attributable to various forms of strategic entry in which parties selectively field candidates in certain races. In particular, elite collusion—when multiple parties coordinate on where to field candidates—is especially important. Data from other countries confirm that these findings are not unique to India.     

Leader heuristics,political knowledge and voting in Britain's AV referendum

This paper uses data gathered in the British Election Study's 2011 AV Referendum Survey to investigate the impact of party leader images on referendum voting. The emphasis on leader images accords well with research showing that leader heuristics have sizable effects on voting in major referendums and general elections in Britain and other mature democracies. Reacting to these findings, some analysts have argued that the effects of leader images are heterogeneous, being stronger for voters with lower levels of political knowledge. In contrast, consistent with recent research in experimental economics and political psychology, it can be hypothesized that more knowledgeable voters rely more heavily on leader heuristics than do less knowledgeable individuals. Using multivariate statistical techniques developed for interpreting interaction effects in nonlinear models, analyses indicate that a political knowledge index focusing on the electoral system does not have statistically significant effects on referendum voting. However, voters' knowledge of leaders' positions on AV does interact with leader images. The analyses show that voters with higher levels of political knowledge are influenced more strongly by leader heuristics than are those who are less knowledgeable.     

Judicial Selection: Politics,Biases, and Constituency Demands

The determinants of recent U.S. districtcourt judges and appellate court judgesselection have been subject of much debate,but little systematic evidence has beenpresented to substantiate claims regardingdiscrimination against particular groups ofjudicial nominees, nor regarding the lengthof the appointment process. We study boththe length of the nominations process, andthe likelihood of confirmation andemphasize the role of Senatorial seniorityand agenda control in the confirmationsprocess. We find that Senators with agendacontrol have a positive effect on the speedand likelihood of confirmation and thatnominees from states with comparativelysenior Senators receive expedited treatmentrelative to other nominees. Althoughpolitics matter in the confirmationprocess, Senators are responsive to aperceived ``shortage'' of judges, since theyfill seats faster when a relatively largenumber of court seats are vacant. Nomineeswith higher personal qualifications arealso more likely to experience success inconfirmations. We found no evidence ofgender or race discrimination on the partof the Senate.     

Is compulsory voting habit-forming? Regression discontinuity evidence from Brazil

Voting in one election increases one's propensity to vote in the future. It remains unclear, however, whether this pattern holds when voting is compulsory – as is the case in a quarter of all democracies. Is compulsory voting habit-forming? I address this question using a regression discontinuity design and administrative turnout data from Brazil, where voting is voluntary at age 16 and compulsory at age 18. I find no evidence that compulsory voting instils voting habits. Instead, the evidence points to a first-time compulsory voting boost, which gradually dissipates as voters grow older. I show that targeted mobilisation of first-time compulsory voters is a plausible mechanism behind the turnout boost. Alternative explanations find less support in the data. The results clarify the scope conditions of prior research on voting habits, and have important implications for the debate over the second-order effects of compulsory voting.     

Barriers to competition and the effect on political shirking: 1953–1992

Economists and political scientists have offered a variety of explanations for why legislators might rationally choose to ignore the preferences of their constituents, political parties, and presidents. The broad conclusion of this literature is that there is an element of “shirking” in congressional voting. The objective of this paper is to suggest that the effects of shirking in congressional voting may have increased over time, largely in response to the raising of barriers to competition in congressional elections, thereby enabling legislators to vote their own preferences without fear of losing reelection. We use a quasi-experimental design that controls for the effects of party, region, electoral safety, presidential control of the White House, and constituency factors, in isolating the causal effects of barriers to entry on a continuous series of roll-calls regarding the raising of the debt limit between 1953 and 1992. We find that “shirking” in legislative voting on debt limit legislation is a post-1970s phenomenon.     

Political Action Committee Spending and Senate roll call voting

This paper addresses how PAC spending affects the roll call voting behavior of U.S. Senators. Using a theoretical framework which draws broadly on the voting literature, we develop models that explain Senatorial voting behavior in a pre-PAC and post-PAC world. Testing both models we find weak support for a Downs-Black view of voting participation in the first model. The second model supports the alteration of voting incentives resulting from PAC spending. We find that PACs have a positive effect on voting participation. The conjecture remains whether PACs change voting outcomes, but it is clear that they buy voting participation.     

Constituent errors in assessing their Senators

We attempt to explain why some constitutents are well informed and others are poorly informed about the positions taken by their U.S. Senators. The acquisition of political information is modeled in a Bayesian framework. A constituent with virtually no information about a candidate assigns him an average position on a liberal/conservative spectrum. As more political information is acquired with more political involvement, the constituent shifts her prior toward the politician's actual position and thus has a smaller error in assessing positions taken by her representative. In the Bayesian framework, voters make larger errors in evaluating the records of party mavericks than of typical party members. The model is tested using data from the 1982 American National Election Study. Data on the respondent's perceived ideology of their Senators and their socioeconomic characteristics are combined with information on the Senators' actual ideology, length of time in the Senate, political party, and candidacy for re-election in 1982. The empirical analysis provides support for our predictions.     

Simulation Analysis of the Effect of Party Identification on Finnish Parties' Optimal Positions

The Finnish National Election Study of 2003 revealed that most voters in Finland do not identify with parties and are self‐described as independents. In this article it is asserted that partisan attachments affect Finnish parties' optimal positions despite the large amount of independents. To show this, the article is divided in two parts. In the first part, voters' decisions are assumed to be deterministic. To show the effect of party identification under deterministic voting, two different types of simulations are conducted: the partisan type, where the partisans' voting behaviour depends on their distance from the party and on a degree of partisan attachment, and the apartisan type, where voting behaviour depends solely on policy issue distance. Results show that partisan attachments drive parties to adopt different ‘one‐off’ optimal positions than they would if party competition was solely based on policy issue distance. In the second part of the article, it is assumed that voters' decisions are probabilistic. Upon showing that party identification makes a voting model solely based on distance significantly more fit, the predicted probabilities of party choice are computed. Results indicate that the probability that a voter will vote for a party is higher when the party is located at its optimal position according to the partisan type of simulations rather than the apartisan one.     

Explaining the Failure of Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights (Ombudsman’s Office) after Democratization: Elections, Incentives, and Unaccountability in the Mexican Senate

Mexico??s ombudsman??s office (the Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH)), established in 1990 by a nondemocratic government, posed no threat to the then ruling party. Counter to expectations, even after Mexico democratized in 2000, the CNDH remained unwilling to challenge officials for human rights violations. I argue that this is because the ombudsman (the head of the CNDH) is chosen by Mexican Senators who are not accountable??due to secret voting and a prohibition on reelection??to the Mexican public. While civil society wanted a powerful ombudsman, the three main parties did not. Ignoring the public, Senators responded to their parties and appointed a compliant individual to serve as ombudsman, thereby ensuring that the CNDH would not challenge those who held political power. The paper suggests that where accountability institutions, such as human rights offices, are chosen by unaccountable actors (in this case the Mexican Senate), the development of such accountability institutions will be limited.     

Is Trade Policy for Sale? Congressional Voting on Recent Trade Bills

This paper examines voting by U.S. Representatives onthe North American Free Trade Agreement, the UruguayRound Agreement, and most-favored nation status forChina. Using recent political economy models of tradepolicy to formulate an empirical specification ofcongressional voting behavior, we find evidence thatcampaign contributions influenced legislators' voteson the NAFTA and Uruguay Round bills. Labor groupcontributions were associated with votes against freertrade while business contributions were associatedwith votes in favor of freer trade. Economicconditions in each member's district as well as thebroad policy views of the legislators also affectedrepresentatives' voting decisions.