Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions

I examine the impact of long-term partisan loyalties on perceptions of specific political figures and events. In contrast to the notion of partisanship as a simple running tally of political assessments, I show that party identification is a pervasive dynamic force shaping citizens' perceptions of, and reactions to, the political world. My analysis employs panel data to isolate the impact of partisan bias in the context of a Bayesian model of opinion change; I also present more straightforward evidence of contrasts in Democrats' and Republicans' perceptions of objective politically relevant events. I conclude that partisan bias in political perceptions plays a crucial role in perpetuating and reinforcing sharp differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans. This conclusion handsomely validates the emphasis placed by the authors of The American Voter on the role of enduring partisan commitments in shaping attitudes toward political objects.     

The possibility of a desirable minimal state

There is a near consensus that organized special interests use influence to expand government into activities that are detrimental to the public at large. Consequently, as Lee (1989) suggests, it would be desirable if the general public had more control over political decisions — if government were more responsive to the public interest. However, the public interest like rent-seeking, is a subjective concept (Pasour, 1987).The possible existence of a desirable minimal state is not disproved by an approach that assumes utilities are interpersonally comparable. Individual utilities are subjective and ordinal and hence, cannot be added or weighted to determine the level of government that is socially optimal. If one accepts the subjectivist approach, it follows that no one can decide upon any policy whatever in the absence of an ultimate ethical or value judgment (Rothbard, 1982: 212). In this respect, determining the desirable minimal state is no different from determining whether an individual government program is desirable (or whether it represents rent-seeking waste).     

International trade policy in Israel: Another model — Reply

The aim of this study was to examine the tariff structure in Israel in terms of the four main theoretical models of endogenous commercial policy. The empirical results for levels of protection in Israel support several of the models. In particular the pressure group model performs well and especially the variable that represents the lobbying power of the Histadrut/public sector in Israel. This is consistent with the longstanding political power of the Histadrut in Israel. The Histadrut's role in the Israeli economy rises above the western concept of a labor union and takes on a quasi-governmental function. The clearest example of this elevated status is seen when the government included the Histadrut as part of the commission charged with the responsibility of carrying out the nominal liberalization process of the 1960s. Evidently it is this kind of political-economic power that allowed the Histadrut to affect the level of protection Histadrut-dominated industries received.The displacement costs model is also supported suggesting that officials, when deciding on tariff rates, are sensitive to the displacement costs (e.g., amount and average duration of unemployment), associated with different levels of protection for various industries. This result stands in contrast to the goals set out in the New Economics Policy of 1962 discussed earlier. Apparently tariff setting authorities desired to increase efficiency by reducing protection but were also willing, perhaps for political reasons, to trade off lower displacement costs with higher tariff rates.     

Incentives and political contributions

Two implications from this research are noted. First, from a researcher's viewpoint, our research suggests the importance of age, wealth, tax rates, and marital status as determinants of political contributions by top U.S. wealth-holders. Therefore, these factors should be included in aggregated models that attempt to analyze the relations between such variables as voting, campaign expenditures and the outcomes of elections. Second, from politicians' viewpoints, this research suggests that individual economic variables such as marginal tax rates and wealth are major determinants of individual decisions to contribute to politicians. Assuming that such contributions reflect votes, this research suggests the relative importance of focusing campaign promises on economic variables — a strategy that low tax politicians like Ronald Reagan and George Bush may keenly be aware of.The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Treasury Department.     

Subformal warning systems in the species Homo politicus

A political activist needs to pick up early warning signals that something is happening which might require his attention. The something could be an emergent danger or opportunity. An ideal-typical warning system is postulated to account for what is believed to be the extraordinary infrequency of activists being caught off guard under most routine conditions. Such a system would ideally meet four criteria: rapidity, comprehensiveness, validity, and selectivity. The postulated system rests on what Anthony Downs has called subformal communications channels among individuals and groups interrelated by principles of specialization and the division of labor.I am very grateful to Janice Holve for her valuable assistance in gathering data and in helping to sharpen my ideas. In the early stages of this project, Gene Bretton helped conduct a review of the literature. Aaron Wildavsky, David Kirp, Marcel Teitler, and Jack Citrin read and commented on various drafts. Financial support from the National Institute of Mental Health is also gratefully acknowledged.     

The decline of partisanship in the United States: A reexamination of the neutrality hypothesis

The neutrality hypothesis suggests that the erosion of partisan loyalties in the United States does not reflect a growing sense of alienation from the party system, or a loss of public confidence in political parties generally. Instead, we are told that many independents simply regard the parties as irrelevant in the search for solutions to our most important national problems. The following report challenges the assumption that such beliefs necessarily lead citizens to express neutral feelings toward either the Democrats or the Republicans, or toward both. Data from the CPS election studies show, first, that aggregate levels of neutrality are about the same today as they were 20 years ago and, second, that there is a relationship between nonpartisanship and negative views concerning the parties' capacity to serve as representative (or linkage) institutions in democratic politics. It is our contention that, to some degree, this relationship can help us to account for the weakening of partisan attachments since 1964. If we are correct, a restoration of the parties' mass base will be even more difficult to achieve than the neutrality hypothesis implies.     

Thematic memory for politics in children

This paper reports on an experiment designed to test the way (fourth grade) children congnitively process various kinds of information about politics. Our findings provide evidence that children integrate symbols from their immediate political environment into themes. These themes may then serve to organize their political knowledge and mediate receipt of new information. We did not find similar evidence of thematic integration for adult political symbols. These findings raise questions about the degree to which events in the adult political world will directly affect children's developing orientations toward that world.     

Do legislators' votes reflect constituency preference? A simple way to evaluate the Senate

U.S. senators frequently vote against the preference of their constituency, assuming that such a preference exists. Both of a state's senators represent the same constituency. Whenever they split their votes, one or the other is necessarily going against the constituency preference. For the sample of defense-related votes analyzed above, misrepresentation — either observable vote splitting or unobservable vote matches that go against the constituency preference — occurred at least 37 percent of the time, at least 46 percent on one vote. Although party differences accounted for more than two-thirds of the vote splitting, a substantial number of splits remained. Besides, a party difference for a state's senatorial pair is itself problematical.The method employed here can be applied easily to any data whatever on senatorial voting. Its application will show that, quite often, many senators depart from constituency preference. This finding refutes the hypothesis, popular in certain circles, that ours is a more or less perfect political market with little or no scope for ideologically driven voting by legislators.     

The MISSING LINK: Exploring the Relationship Between Higher Education and Political Engagement

Empirical political behavior research has consistently observed a robust and positive relationship between education and political engagement, but has failed to adequately explain why education is so important. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) Longitudinal Study, I test three competing hypotheses explaining the enduring link between higher education and political behavior. I find that a verbal SAT scores and a social science curriculum are related to future political engagement, suggesting that the content of higher education, especially a curriculum that develops language and civic skills, is influential in shaping participation in American democracy. Analysis for this article relied on restricted-use data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Application procedures for obtaining an NCES restricted data license to access theBaccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study are available at http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/b&b/. Replication code and supplemental variables (including school quality) are available onthe authors website.     

The median and the competitive equilibrium in one dimension

Two alternative models of legislative outcomes are the minimum winning coalition and the competitive equilibrium (Koford, 1982). In a unidimensional setting, the outcome under the former is the median, while the outcome under the latter is the highest net demand location.This paper describes the competitive equilibrium in a unidimensional model, and shows that under some common conditions it coincides with the median, in particular for pure redistributive issues. However, for distributive issues, the two equilibria will differ. Finally, the comparative statics of the two models are examined; while the winning coalition is sensitive only to changes in the location of the median, for distributive issues the competitive equilibrium has the standard economic comparative statics that the outcome adjusts in the direction of the change in preferences.     

A constitutional view of legislative pay

The distinction between constitutional rules and post-constitutional laws is often a fine line. However, this analysis suggests that, in the case of state legislative pay, constitutional rules are much more binding than post-constitutional restrictions. Further research in the area of constitutions from an economic point of view may yield fruitful results. As Tullock (1988: 140) has stated, The real importance of such an evaluation could be as a first step toward developing improved constitutional rules. Evaluating other areas of policy from a constitutional point of view might shed light on the path towards the development of optimal rules in a democratic process.Thanks go to Randy Holcombe for helpful comments and suggestions.     

University admission requirements as rent-seeking

The paper argues that admission requirements into public universities are best viewed as rent-seeking by several groups, in contrast to the conventional rationing rationale. The rents are principally nonfinancial for some of the groups. The paper concludes by showing why admission requirements are not set too high.Discussions with Joe Jadlow, Scott Turner and Larkin Warner, and comments by colleagues on an earlier version in our departmental Workshop helped clarify the issues. I thank them, emphasizing that the normal caveat is not pro forma.     

Competition in political and economic markets

Prepared as a response to Frey and Eichenberger's Anomalies in Political Economy. We thank Gordon Tullock for helpful discussions. This work was partially supported by the Taylor Experimental Laboratory at Washington University.     

What's in a word?

In this paper, we argue that citizens' views about the personality characteristics of their political leaders are subject to systematic bias, motivated by the desire to maintain existing impressions. We report two studies designed to explore how such trait biases, involving judgments of real politicians, are manifested. Drawing on work in social psychology (John, Hampson, and Goldberg, 1991), we hypothesize, and demonstrate experimentally, that traitbreadth plays a critical role in the judgment process. Specifically, people tend to select broad positive traits (e.g., kind) and narrower negative traits (gullible) to describe politicians that they like; conversely, people tend to select broad negative traits (unintelligent) and narrower positive traits (soft-hearted) to describe politicians that they dislike. This trait breadth attribution bias was much stronger among those who had a positive, rather than negative, impression of the politician, a result we discuss in the context of related evidence of affective asymmetries in political judgment (e.g., Kinder, 1986; Marcus and Mackuen, 1993). More generally, these studies illustrate the potential associated with integrating cognitive, affective, and motivational factors in the service of fully understanding political judgment and choice.     

Governance dilemmas in an age of ambiguous authority

A convergence of functions, financing and governance arrangements between public and private sectors of society cloud the study and understanding of policy making, implementation and evaluation. Forces creating and shaping the interpenetrated society are trends toward professionalism and corporatism. The health industry provides an example. Increasingly, but with little formal guidance from political theory, the American system has authorized privately constituted citizen governing boards to spend tax dollars, make and implement policy choices, and evaluate outcomes. This essay argues for closer examination of the nature of representation and accountability in these little studied creatures of governance and introduces the subsequent articles addressed to the subject.     

Tollison costs and technological innovation: The case of environmental regulation

This paper departs from the Tullock cost paradigm that views competition for monopoly privilege as a welfare-inimical process that wastefully dissipates preexisting producers' surplus and, occasionally, leads to inefficient increases in costs and counterproductive uses of scarce resources. The potential availability of rent-seeking may bring about the elimination of inefficient regulatory regimes that retard or prevent the introduction of cost-reducing innovations. Air quality management is but one area in which innovation rent-seeking holds promise for concrete welfare gains. Researchers may wish to focus on institutional mechanisms designed to overcome the transactions costs and free rider disincentives to the formation of a coalition to seek innovation rents. An example of such a mechanism might be a joint venture that requires all venture members to engage in lobbying and to contribute to collective research efforts. These unaddressed questions await future research.The authors are grateful for the insightful comments of Gordon Tullock, Robert D. Tollison, Michael T. Marlow and J.R. Clark. The usual caveats apply. The views expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be taken to represent the views of their employers.     

The dynamics of interpersonal attitudinal influence: Some additional evidence

The process by which one individual or group of individuals influences the attitudes of another is an important area of concern for students of political behavior. A few years ago a major political science journal published an article pointing to the salience of perceptual accuracy and issue salience in this regard. Interpersonal affective relationships were also considered but dismissed as lacking independent causal significance.Through parallel analysis of a separate data base, along with additional insights from a social conditioning approach, this report attempts to show that affectis an important variable mediating interpersonal attitudinal influence. It does so in multiplicative interaction with measures of parental cue-giving, such as issue salience. Hence, adding affect to the statistical modelafter removing the effects of cue-giving masks the joint effects.     

The war on poverty: between economics and politics

A wealth of solutions to poverty have been proposed, with little understanding of the forces required to turn a sound idea into an implementable program. A system approach is suggested to overcome this deficiency. This implies analyzing the effects of antipoverty measures on other elements of a society and a polity and the feedback effects of changes in these other elements on the new programs which are being introduced. Such an approach is seen overcoming the limitations of fragmented views of the issue—such as the purely economic one—as well as the lack of systematic analysis of a progam's costs, benefits, sources of funds, and nonfinancial resources. Consequently, a challenge is also offered to those who formulate programs without taking into account dominant values (e.g., questions of consensus) and other political considerations (e.g., which groups would benefit or suffer from the program). This is seen as leading to undemocratic action or, most frequently, to inaction due to resistance. The article concludes with a brief review of the recent Nixon-Moynihan proposal in terms of the societal-system approach here advocated, and adds a cautionary note on the limits of planning.In revising this article, I benefited from comments by Daniel Bell, Carolyn O. Atkinson, and Sarajane Heidt.     

Impersonal influence: Effects of representations of public opinion on political attitudes

Many phenomena of interest to political scientists involve what may be termed impersonal influence; that is, influence that derives from individuals' perceptions of others' attitudes, beliefs, or experiences. Others in this case refers not to the close friends and acquaintances that concerned the authors of classics such asThe People's Choice andPersonal Influence, but rather to the anonymous others outside an individual's realm of personal contacts. Modern mass media facilitate the influence of anonymous others by devoting considerable time and attention to portraying trends in mass opinion. This study explores the rationale for theories of impersonal influence, synthesizing existing research findings falling under this general theoretical framework, and investigating its psychological underpinnings using experiments embedded in representative surveys.