Balancing constituency representation and party responsiveness in the US Senate: the conditioning effect of state ideological heterogeneity

Harden, Jeffrey J.; Carsey, Thomas M.

doi:10.1007/s11127-010-9693-7

Cited by 47 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The directional motivations of politicians come not just from ideology and partisanship, as they do in the electorate, but also from their constituencies (e.g., Harden & Carsey, 2012;Kingdon, 1973;Levitt, 1996). Members have electoral incentives to be mindful of constituents, and large policy corrections have the potential to put members out-of-step and thus at electoral risk (Canes-Wrone, Brady, & Cogan, 9 2002).…”

Section: Election Cycles and Motivated Information Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Policy Consequences of Motivated Information Processing Among the Partisan Elite

Anderson

Harbridge

2013

American Politics Research

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An analysis of U.S. budgetary changes shows that, among subaccounts that are cut, Democrats make more large cuts when they control more lawmaking institutions. This surprising finding is consistent with legislators who are subject to motivated reasoning. In an information-rich world, they disproportionately respond to information in line with their bias unless they must make a large accuracy correction. This article tests, for the first time, motivated information processing among legislators. It finds evidence that Democrats engage in motivated information processing and that the effects of it are felt more on social spending and in off-election years.

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Section: Election Cycles and Motivated Information Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Policy Consequences of Motivated Information Processing Among the Partisan Elite

Anderson

Harbridge

2013

American Politics Research

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“…This argument is simultaneously analogous and different from the argument by Harden and Carsey (2010) and Jones (2003). In their argument, incumbents in heterogeneous districts might seek to avoid taking up clear positions because they fear offending a significant subset of voters.…”

Section: Proposition A1 An Incumbent's Campaign Expenditures Increasmentioning

confidence: 93%

Money, Reputation, and Incumbency in U.S. House Elections, or Why Marginals Have Become More Expensive

Kim

LeVeck

2013

Am Polit Sci Rev

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S ince 1972, campaign spending by House incumbents has skyrocketed, particularly in those districts with marginal support for the incumbent's party. At the same time, parties in the House have become much more cohesive in the way they vote, producing more precise and informative party brands. We argue that these two phenomena are fundamentally linked. As parties have developed more precise reputations, incumbents in these districts must spend much more to attract voters in "marginal" districts, who would be willing to vote for a candidate with the particular incumbent's legislative record, but not the average member of his party. Increasingly precise party reputations provide voters with stronger priors that incumbents are just like the rest of their party, and incumbents in marginal districts must spend more to overcome these beliefs. We demonstrate this using a simple formal model and test it empirically using campaign-spending data from 1972 to 2008.

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“…Research shows that this tension can negatively impact policy representation if the constituency is sufficiently heterogeneous. Legislators in diverse districts tend to be less responsive to the median voter and more responsive to the party (Bailey and Brady 1998;Gerber and Lewis 2004;Harden and Carsey 2012).…”

Section: Cross-pressured Legislators and Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representation, Competing Principals, and Waffling on Bills in US Legislatures

Kirkland

Harden

2016

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Legislators are often placed in the position of representing the interests of their constituents against the preferences of their own party leaders. We develop a theoretical framework indicating that these cross‐pressured legislators are more likely to initially support legislation and subsequently change their minds than are legislators whose constituents and leaders share similar preferences. Moreover, we expect this pattern to be most pronounced among members of majority parties than minority‐party members. We test our expectations using data on bill cosponsorship and final passage votes from 46 lower state legislative chambers and the US House, finding considerable support for our theory.

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Balancing constituency representation and party responsiveness in the US Senate: the conditioning effect of state ideological heterogeneity

Abstract: Representation, State ideology, Ideological heterogeneity, Roll-call voting, US Senate,

Cited by 47 publications

References 56 publications

The Policy Consequences of Motivated Information Processing Among the Partisan Elite

The Policy Consequences of Motivated Information Processing Among the Partisan Elite

Money, Reputation, and Incumbency in U.S. House Elections, or Why Marginals Have Become More Expensive

Representation, Competing Principals, and Waffling on Bills in US Legislatures

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