Ideological Distance from the Majority Party and Public Approval of Congress

Abstract: We analyze whether or not perceived ideological distance from the congressional majority party influences individuals' approval of the way Congress as a whole handles its job. We argue that, to the extent citizens see the majority party as representing an ideological stance that is distant from their own, they are unlikely to feel that Congress is representing them and therefore will be less supportive toward Congress. In contrast, when members of the public feel that the congressional majority is close to them ideologically, they are likely to feel well represented by and thereby approve of Congress. Using cross‐sectional data covering periods of Democratic, Republican, and split party control of Congress (1980–98), this analysis provides strong support for the ideological proximity argument.     

COMPARING DELINQUENCY CAREERS IN COURT RECORDS AND SELF‐REPORTS*

Most knowledge about delinquency careers is derived from official records. The main aim of this paper is to compare conclusions about delinquency careers derived from court referrals with conclusions derived from self‐reports. Data are analyzed from the Seattle Social Development Project, which is a prospective longitudinal survey of 808 youths. Annual court and self‐report data were available from age 11 to age 17 for eight offenses. The prevalence of offending increased with age, in both court referrals and self‐reports. There was a sharp increase in the prevalence of court referrals between ages 12 and 13, probably because of the reluctance of the juvenile justice system to deal with very young offenders. The individual offending frequency increased with age in self‐reports, but it stayed constant in court referrals, probably because of limitations on the annual number of referrals per offender. There was significant continuity in offending in both court referrals and self‐reports, but continuity was greater in court referrals. The concentration of offending (and the importance of chronic offenders) was greater in self‐reports. An early age of onset predicted a large number of offenses in both self‐reports and court referrals. However, an early onset predicted a high rate of offending in court referrals but not in self‐reports, possibly because very young offenders who were referred to court were an extreme group. About 37% of offenders and 3% of offenses led to a court referral. The more frequent offenders were less likely to be referred to court after each offense, but most of them were referred to court sooner or later. There was a sharp increase between ages 12 and 13 in the probability of an offender and an offense leading to a court referral. It is concluded that criminal career research based on self‐reports sometimes yields different conclusions compared with research based on official records.     

Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology: Out of Step with the Primary Electorate?

This article draws on a new dataset of House primary‐ and general‐election outcomes (1956–98) to examine the relationship between primary elections and candidate ideology. We show that, like presidential candidates, congressional candidates face a strategic‐positioning dilemma: should they align themselves with their general‐ or primary‐election constituencies? Relative to general‐election voters, primary voters favor more ideologically extreme candidates. We show that congressional candidates handle the dilemma by positioning themselves closer to the primary electorate. This article thus supports the idea that primaries pull candidates away from median district preferences.