All spending is not equal: European Union public spending,policy feedback and citizens’ support for the EU

While public support is central to the problem‐solving capacity of the European Union, we know little about when and why the EU can increase its citizens’ support through spending. Extensive research finds that citizens living in countries that are net beneficiaries of the EU budget are more supportive of the EU, assuming that citizens care equally about all forms of spending. It is argued in this article, however, that the amount of spending is only part of the story. Understanding the effects of spending on support requires a consideration of how transfers are spent. Drawing on policy feedback theories in comparative politics, it is shown that support for the EU is a function of the fit between the spending area and economic need in individuals’ immediate living context. Results from a statistical analysis of EU spending on human capital, infrastructure, agriculture, energy and environmental protection in 127 EU regions over the period 2001–2011 corroborate this argument. As the EU and other international organisations become increasingly publicly contested, the organisations themselves may increasingly try to shore up public support through spending, but they will only be successful under specific conditions.     

The industrial structure of the California Assembly: Committee assignments,economic interests,and campaign contributions

This paper examines the provision of campaign contributions made by economic interests to incumbents seeking reelection in the 1984, 1986, and 1988 California Assembly elections. The study tests whether the distribution of campaign contributions by specific industrial sectors corresponds to legislator possession of the policy property rights associated with membership on relevant Assembly standing committees. A non-parametric statistical model compares the distribution of campaign contributions from groups within a given industrial sector to members of relevant policy committees with the distribution of contributions from all other contributor classes. The empirical analysis confirms that committee assignments significantly affect the allocation of special interest resources in Assembly elections, substantiating the importance of institutional considerations in influencing special interest activity.     

Ideology and interests in congressional voting: The politics of abortion in the U.S. Senate

Many studies suggest that personal ideology accounts for much more of congressional voting behavior than does attention to the desires of the electorate. There are two main explanations given for this seemingly robust conclusion: 1) poor measures of constituency preferences compared to those for ideology or behavior, and 2) representatives “shirk” on an inattentive electorate. We argue that existing studies have been biased against the “interest” explanation by ignoring the structure of American Congressional elections, in particular the party primary process. Correcting for the party primary effect, we show, within the context of abortion politics, that constituency interests possess greater explanatory power than previous models would suggest.     

The political policy cycle: Presidential effort vs. presidential control

After disentangling presidential budget proposals from budgetary changes attributable to fluctuations in the economy and to congressional action, we find consistent evidence for a presidential macroeconomic policy cycle attuned to the elctoral cycle. Proposed budgets are more expansionary in election years than at other times. The Congress, however, also plays a significant role in determining fiscal outcomes. Its budgets are systematically related to those of the President and in general reinforce presidential efforts to respond to the electoral cycle. Although Presidents generally propose quite conservative budgets, their proposals are more expansionary in presidential election years than in other years. The Congress, which generally adopts an expansionary fiscal policy ratifies this proposed macroeconomic policy electoral cycle by adopting even more expansionary budgets in presidential election years than they do at other times.     

Reinforcement vs. change: The political influence of the media

The aim of this paper is to analyze competition between two ideological media outlets that want to influence their viewers so as to boot the number of votes for their preferred political party. We consider two ways of influencing viewers, which correspond to two prominent theories borrowed from the literature on Sociology: the “Reinforcement Approach” and the “Attitudinal Orientations Approach”. Our findings show that the aim of influencing viewers generally pushes media outlets to differentiate their opinions, and that the extend of this differentiation deeply depends on the viewers’ behavior. More precisely, we observe that if the viewers channel hop, media outlets end up differentiating their opinions more than if the viewers receive all their information from just one media.