How to vote, whether to vote: Strategies for voting and abstaining on congressional roll calls

Cohen, Linda R.; Noll, Roger G.

doi:10.1007/bf00992292

Cited by 81 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Although roll-call votes are the most common way lawmakers take a position, endorsements also reveal one's views. Research has also shown that lawmakers avoid taking a position (Jones, 2003) and abstain on roll-call votes (Cohen and Noll, 1991) for electoral reasons as well. Consequently, we expected the endorsement and non-endorsement of Trump to be motivated by electoral factors.…”

Section: Electoral Motivationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

#NeverTrump: Why Republican members of Congress refused to support their party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election

Johnson

McCray

Ragusa

2018

Research & Politics

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In an election characterized by countless headlines, the refusal of Republicans to support their party's nominee was a constant topic of discussion in 2016. Our paper looks to explain why Republican members of Congress joined the socalled #NeverTrump movement. In the first part, we document the varied-and often contradictory-explanations of the #NeverTrump movement offered by journalists, pundits, and politicians during the campaign. We then categorize these popular explanations into four theoretical categories: policy preferences, identity, electoral motivations, and establishment dynamics. In the second part, we test the varied claims. We believe two findings stand out and have broader implications for American politics. First, despite the popular belief that members of Congress are single-minded in their pursuit of reelection, we found that a lawmaker's religion and sex-both in the identity category-had the largest effects on the decision to join the #NeverTrump movement. Second, the results show that establishment Republicans were more likely to support Donald Trump's candidacy. Notably, the direction of this effect is inconsistent with popular explanations of the #NeverTrump movement but consistent with a range of academic studies.

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Section: Electoral Motivationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

#NeverTrump: Why Republican members of Congress refused to support their party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election

Johnson

McCray

Ragusa

2018

Research & Politics

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“…As can be seen, the results confirm the predictions made concerning the coefficients associated with almost all of the right-hand side variables, especially the variable REPUB. Ceteris paribus, Republican House members appear to pay more attention to national rather than local concerns relative to their Democratic counterparts)l As suggested by the research of Cohen and Noll (1988), the Column 1 results may be affected by an important bias to the extent that Republican members tend to be in the minority on House roll call votes and that members of a minority are more likely to show up to vote than members of a majority. 12 To test for the effects of such a possible bias, a subsample of 25 votes is drawn from the total of 511 roll call votes cast in 1987.…”

Section: Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 91%

Local benefit-seeking and national policymaking: Democrats vs. Republicans in the legislature

Zupan¹

1991

Public Choice

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“…12 They showed that congressional abstention is related to cost, closeness and indifference, but failed to find any evidence for the size effect. Cohen and Noll (1991) depart from the standard theory of turnout by assuming that legislators are motivated by reelection rather than by being pivotal on roll calls. Their theory provides a set of testable predictions.…”

Section: A Brief Overview Of the Empirical Literaturementioning

confidence: 97%

“…2 The literature contains only a limited number of studies devoted to legislative abstention. Cohen and Noll (1991), Poole and Rosenthal (1997), and Sanders (2000a, 2000b), which are developed in the specific context of the U.S. Congress, and Scully (1997), which is devoted on abstention in the European Parliament, are examples of such studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Abstention in Daylight: Strategic Calculus of Voting in the European Parliament

Noury

2004

Public Choice

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As in large elections, substantialabstention is frequently observed inlegislative assemblies. This paper analyzesroll call votes from the third and fourthlegislatures (1989–1999) of the EuropeanParliament to test predictions from threetypes of theories of abstention: (1)decision-theoretic approach of RationalChoice theory, (2) game-theoretic approachof Rational Choice theory, and (3) theSwing Voter’s Curse theory. The resultsindicate that closeness significantlydecreases the rate of abstention. Thefindings also show that an increase in theprobability of being in the majorityincreases turnout. Overall, findings aresupportive of the decision-theoreticapproach of Rational Choice theory butnot of the game-theoretic approach toabstention or the Swing Voter’s Cursetheory. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004

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How to vote, whether to vote: Strategies for voting and abstaining on congressional roll calls

Cited by 81 publications

References 8 publications

#NeverTrump: Why Republican members of Congress refused to support their party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election

#NeverTrump: Why Republican members of Congress refused to support their party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election

Local benefit-seeking and national policymaking: Democrats vs. Republicans in the legislature

Abstention in Daylight: Strategic Calculus of Voting in the European Parliament

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