The Material Culture of US Elections

Abstract

The abiding motif of election campaigns in the USA is not the spot ad, nor the candidate debate, nor even the campaign Web site, but instead remains the campaign button. It should be consigned to history by fast paced development of campaigns into modern technologies, but there are still hundreds of designs produced quadrennially for national campaigns, and many more for races at all levels. Even if the life of the campaign button is coming to a close, it has been a long run, from the brass buttons of 1789, to the tiny framed daguerreotypes of the mid-19th century, through the celluloid buttons of the 1890s, to the chip implanted versions of today.

But the campaign button is just the most ubiquitous example of the material culture of the US election. It has been modified by changes in artisan skills, industrial production, bulk availability, the changes in inexpensive materials and manufactures, and cost effectiveness and profitability. Over the same period of time many other artefacts have been used by entrepreneurs and campaigns to bring the candidates and their public together at the same time as making a profit-either financial or political. This article discusses the role of entrepreneurship, changing industrial technology, and the emergence of newly cost-effective materials, as contexts for the creation of the wealth of campaign ephemera that has adapted to change and maintained its place in the campaign for over 200 years.     

The Strategic Importance of State-Level Factors in Presidential Elections

While political scientists usually rely on national models ofpresidential elections, the candidates and their campaign staffstend to focus on state-by-state strategies. This study testshypotheses that presidential candidates and their parties canincrease their support in specific states through the strategicselection of their national-party convention sites and theirvice-presidential running mates. This study also assesses thecommon assertion that candidates receive an electoral boostin states with incumbent governors from the same party. Utilizinga normed model of the presidential vote in the states that servesas a baseline for assessing the importance of these strategicfactors, the study finds that presidential and vice-presidentialcandidates receive an electoral advantage in their home statesand regions. Generally, parties do not derive significant electoralbenefits in states selected to host the national conventionor those in which they control the governorship. Important differencesare found over time and between the two political parties.     

Moderation and Dissent. The French Presidential Elections of 1995

The results of the Presidential elections of April-May 1995 confirm that there are currently two parallel trends in French politics. On the one hand the mainstream left and mainstream right are increasingly contesting the middle ground, and a majority of voters accept this. On the other hand, a substantial minority of the electorate is keen to protest against the inability of any of the major parties to remedy France's socio-economic ills, and therefore votes for the marginal parties, the parties of dissension and protest.     

The Contextual Causes of Issue and Party Voting in American Presidential Elections

This paper analyzes the influence of the two most commonly examined causes of presidential vote choice, policy preferences and party identification. The focus is on change across elections in order to assess how the effects of issues and partisanship respond to the larger political context in which voters make their decisions. In contrast to party centric views of politics, I find little direct responsiveness to party issue contrast and substantial influence of candidate issue contrast. Further, I find that leading hypotheses for the “resurgence in partisanship” are not consistent with some important facts suggesting that the explanation remains elusive.     

Political Communication and the Unexpected Outcome of the 2002 French Presidential Elections

ABSTRACT

The results of the first round of the 2002 French presidential election were a profound shock. Prime Minister Jospin did not make it to the final round run-off, beaten as he was by the far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen who claimed second place. This article argues that use (and misuse) of modern campaigning methods proved decisive to this outcome. Paradoxically, Jospin's overtly professional approach actually hindered him. His flawed strategy failed to target crucial voters, and assorted tactical decisions compounded this error. Nor did the media coverage and distorted public opinion polls help a beleaguered Jospin candidacy. In this election the cautious would be the main beneficiaries.     

Sorting and the Split-Ticket: Evidence from Presidential and Subpresidential Elections

Although prior research demonstrates that strong partisans are less likely to cast a split-ticket, recent scholarly work hints that partisan-ideological sorting—the matching of an individual’s partisan and ideological identities—may play a comparatively stronger role in shaping this voting behavior. Simply, if a high degree of congruence between identities underscores psychological orientations that prevent association with an out-group, then highly-sorted voters should be less likely to cross-party lines within the voting booth. Using the 1972–2012 ANES Time-Series and 2010 CCES surveys, we provide evidence that demonstrates that a high degree of partisan-ideological sorting produces the strongest negative effect on split-ticket voting among a variety of alternative explanations at both the national and subnational levels. We then supplement these analyses with 1992–1996 ANES panel data to demonstrate how changes in sorting over time affect this voting behavior. Our results indicate that although an increase in partisan strength alone is insufficient to reduce an individual’s propensity to cast a split-ticket, an increase in identity sorting over time has a strong negative effect on split-ticket voting. We conclude with a brief discussion about the consequences of identity convergence; namely, that sorting fosters a unique form of electoral “polarization.”     

Presidential Saber Rattling and the Economy

Saber rattling is a prominent tool of the U.S. president's foreign policy leadership. Yet there has been no study of how presidential saber rattling affects international or domestic political outcomes. This study evaluates how presidential saber rattling affects U.S. economic behavior and performance. Theoretically, the study demonstrates that presidential rhetoric affects the risks that economic actors are willing to take, as well as the consequences of these resulting behaviors for U.S. economic performance. Using monthly time series running from January 1978 through January 2005, vector autoregression methods are applied to show that increased presidential saber rattling produces increased perceptions of negative economic news, declining consumer confidence, lower personal consumption expenditures, less demand for money, and slower economic growth. More broadly, the study demonstrates an important linkage between the president's two most important roles: foreign and economic policy leadership. The president's foreign policy pronouncements not only impact other nations, but also affect domestic economic outcomes.     

The political consequences of alienation-based and indifference-based voter abstention: Applications to Presidential Elections

We present a unified model of turnout and vote choice that incorporates two distinct motivations for citizens to abstain from voting: alienation from the candidates, and indifference between the candidates. Empirically, we find that alienation and indifference each motivated significant amounts of voter abstention in the 1980–1988 U.S. presidential elections. Using model-based computer simulations—which permit us to manipulate factors affecting turnout—we show that distinguishing between alienation and indifference illuminates three controversies in elections research. First, we find that abstention because of either alienation or indifference benefited Republican candidates, but only very modestly. Second, presidential elections involving attractive candidates motivate higher turnout, but only to the extent that abstention stems from alienation rather than from indifference. Third, paradoxically, citizens’ individual-level tendencies to abstain because of alienation are strongly affected by their evaluations of the candidates’ policies, whereas aggregate turnout rates do not depend significantly on the candidates’ policy platforms.     

Correct Voting in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Nominating Elections

Criticisms of the system by which the American political parties select their candidates focus on issues of representativeness—how choices are dominated by relatively small numbers of ideologically extreme primary voters, or how residents of small states voting early in the process have disproportionate influence. This paper adds a different concern, albeit one that still addresses representativeness. How well do primary and caucus voters represent their own values and interests with their vote choices? Lau and Redlawsk’s notion of “correct voting” is applied to the 2008 U.S. nominating contests. Four reasons to expect levels of correct voting to be lower in caucus and primary elections than in general election campaigns are discussed. Results suggest that voters in U.S. nominating contests do much worse than voters in general election campaigns, often barely doing better than chance in selecting the candidate who best represents their own values and priorities. Discussion focuses on institutional reforms that should improve citizens’ ability to make correct voting choices in caucuses and primaries.     

Looking to the future: Prospective economic voting in 2008 Presidential Elections

Despite the economic turmoil of the time, a typical study of vote choice in the 2008 US Presidential Election would (falsely) find little evidence that voters’ opinions about the future state of the economy affected their vote choice. We argue that this misleading conclusion results from serious measurement error in the standard prospective economic evaluations survey question. Relying instead on a revised question, included for the first time in the 2008 American National Election Study, we find that most respondents condition their prospective economic evaluations on potential election outcomes, and that these evaluations are an important determinant of vote choice. A replication in a very different political context – the 2008 Ghanaian election – yields similar results.     

The Impact of Parties and Elections on Municipal Debt Policy in Mexico

Opportunistic electoral fiscal policy cycle theory suggests that all subnational officials will raise fiscal spending during elections. Ideological partisan fiscal policy cycle theory suggests that only left‐leaning governments will raise election year fiscal spending, with right‐leaning parties choosing the reverse. This article assesses which of these competing logics applies to debt policy choices. Cross‐sectional time‐series analysis of yearly loan acquisition across Mexican municipalities—on statistically matched municipal subsamples to balance creditworthiness across left‐ and right‐leaning governments—shows that all parties engage in electoral policy cycles but not in the way originally thought. It also shows that different parties favored different types of loans, although not always according to partisan predictions. Both electoral and partisan logics thus shape debt policy decisions—in contrast to fiscal policy where these logics are mutually exclusive—because debt policy involves decisions on multiple dimensions, about the total and type of loans.