No abstract

Two features of citizen response to Congress can be taken as grounds for concern. First, Americans know relatively little about Congress, and especially about congressional procedures and policy output. Second, Congress typically emerges as the least respected political institution. Although these matters are troubling when viewed individually, more disturbing is the dilemma posed when knowledge and attitudes toward Congress are viewed in tandem. It appears that citizens who know Congress the best like Congress the least. Consequently, a sophisticated polity and a well-respected legislature seem fundamentally incompatible. This article seeks to resolve this dilemma, contending that there is nothing about knowledge per se that leads citizens to view Congress unfavorably. Rather, differences in knowledge levels alter the considerations citizens bring to bear when evaluating Congress, with the best-informed individuals constructing judgments on the basis of the most relevant Congress-specific criteria while less knowledgeable citizens employ readily available but more peripheral criteria. N othing in the empirical record suggests that citizens are at all well informed regarding the people, politics, and procedures of Congress or that Congress and its members are held in high esteem. To the contrary, Americans seem to know little about the dominant players in Congress, how Congress operates, and the legislation Congress produces. Moreover, Americans view Congress unfavorably. Approval of Congress typically lags behind that of the president and the Supreme Court, and it is common to hear that members of Congress are "out of touch" and that we should "throw the bums out." If the ideal state of affairs includes a well-informed citizenry Jeffery J. Mondak

Aaron Wildavsky first proposed that presidents in the United States receive more support from Congress in foreign policy and thus can expect to wield more influence and discretion in this policy arena. Since that time, scholars have scrutinized Wildavsky's contention. A recent work by Fleisher et al., using a new measure of presidential support, argues convincingly that broad generalizations about the phenomenon of increased presidential support in foreign policy must be drawn tentatively. This article addresses the two-presidencies thesis in three ways. First, the authors replicate a portion of Edwards's research to illustrate the reliability of our results. Second, the authors extend the data collection on more traditional measures used to test this thesis. Third, to address the issue of intermestic policy, the authors employ a new measure of presidential support that more carefully defines foreign and domestic policy actions. The analyses confirm the findings of Fleisher et al. and Edwards that the two-presidencies phenomenon is largely idiographic.Since World War II, Presidents have had much greater success in controlling the nation's defense and foreign policies than in dominating its domestic policies. -Aaron Wildavsky (1966) Wildavsky (1966) contended that in the United States there is something akin to "two presidencies," one for foreign policy and another for domestic policy. Since that time, people have assumed that the president ought to, and consequently does, receive more support from Congress in foreign policy. Wildavsky's original argument is based on empirical evidence that he culled from congressional roll call votes. Using Congressional Quarterly Almanac presidential box scores, he found that Congress supports presidential proposals concerning foreign policy and national security more than presidential proposals concerning domestic policy. Early follow-up research tended to confirm Wildavsky's contention (LeLoup and Shull 1979;Sigelman 1979).699 Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, no. 4 (December)

The research addresses youth voter turnout in the United States and, specifically, tests the relationship between candidate age and a commitment to vote by young people in a controlled experiment. We learn that potential young voters are more willing to commit to vote when they view pictures of younger candidates running. This is the case after controlling for the age and partisanship of respondents. In a real-world test of our experimental results, we examine state-level variation in youth voter turnout in midterm governor and Senate races (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)). In the state-level analysis, we find a larger candidate age gap in governor and Senate races associates with higher levels of youth mobilization. In all, the research affirms the value of candidate characteristics as a predictor of voting behavior.Keywords youth mobilization, voter turnout, candidate age, social identity theory . . . non-voting among the young seems more important than non-voting among the very old for the practical reason that it seems more remediable.- Converse (1971, p. 445) This research addresses the extent to which the age of candidates influences youth voter mobilization. The broadest normative focus is a concern for widespread participation in democracies to foster republican accountability