Partisan Polarization and Congressional Accountability in House Elections

Early research led scholars to believe that institutional accountability in Congress is lacking because public evaluations of its collective performance do not affect the reelection of its members. However, a changed partisan environment along with new empirical evidence raises unanswered questions about the effect of congressional performance on incumbents' electoral outcomes over time. Analysis of House reelection races across the last several decades produces important findings: (1) low congressional approval ratings generally reduce the electoral margins of majority party incumbents and increase margins for minority party incumbents; (2) partisan polarization in the House increases the magnitude of this partisan differential, mainly through increased electoral accountability among majority party incumbents; (3) these electoral effects of congressional performance ratings hold largely irrespective of a member's individual party loyalty or seat safety. These findings carry significant implications for partisan theories of legislative organization and help explain salient features of recent Congresses.     

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.     

Source Cues, Partisan Identities, and Political Value Expression

This article examines the conditions under which partisan identities shape the positions people express on four political values: equal opportunity, self-reliance, moral traditionalism, and moral tolerance. The theoretical framework posits that (1) party source cues activate latent partisan biases in the minds of citizens, which in turn affect the degree to which individuals express support for these values; (2) out-party cues are more powerful motivators of value expression than in-party cues; (3) value shifts are more pronounced when liberal-conservative identities reinforce partisan sentiments; and (4) partisan cues promote horizontal constraint among these values. These hypotheses are tested using data from a set of experiments appearing on a novel national survey. The empirical results generally support these theoretical expectations.     

Models of Political Accountability and Concepts of Australian Government

Models of political accountability are drawn from views about the nature of government. Too often, however, these views are flawed and/or not made explicit. In particular, the traditional model of government accountability - which will be outlined below - misunderstands the British 'parent' system of responsible government. One immediate task for those interested in accountability is to map the basic features of the Australian system (best understood as 'executive federalism') in order to provide foundations for new accountability models. As well as delaying the map drawing task, the dominance of the traditional account has also 'crowded out' other concepts of accountability. The 'efficiency' and 'democracy' approaches will be discussed below as basically complementary addition to the current Australian debate over accountability. It is thus argued here that a more eclectic approach drawing from diverse but longstanding strands in the public administration tradition can not only enrich the debate but also help to throw light on new public policy developments such as contracting out.     

政治问责及相关概念辨析

基于问责的语义分析与学理阐释可知,作为机制的问责是指问责对象有义务就其行为、政策或职责表现等向问责主体告知、回答、解释与证明,如果问责对象存在失责行为则应接受问责主体的惩罚或制裁。政治以公共决策为重要内容,以行使公共权力为主要方式。在此意义上,可将狭义的政治问责界定为政治官员有义务就其在公共决策与推动公共政策执行中的行为与绩效,向社会公众、代议机关或执政党告知、回答、解释与证明,如果存在违法或不符合民意等失责行为,则应承担政治信任流失甚至公共决策权力丧失的后果。此外,政治问责与行政问责、民主问责、公共问责、社会问责等相关概念既有区别又存在交叉重叠,对其进行比较分析,有助于促进问责领域概念使用的规范化。     

English Councillors and Mayoral Governance: Developing a New Dynamic for Political Accountability

Much has been written about the arrival of directly elected mayors into the English political landscape. The responses of the councillors serving on those councils to the arrival of elected mayors, has by comparison, been neglected. Yet, the construction, by councillors of a new role as the guarantor of local political accountability within mayoral councils, requires councillors to develop new patterns of political behaviour which challenge long‐held assumptions about the role of the councillor as a political representative. The paper reports the findings of research conducted amongst councillors on England's mayoral authorities, which explored how councillors have responded to the arrival of an elected mayor and what mayoral government means for our understanding of the role of the councillor within English local government.