Partisan Infighting Among House Republicans: Leaders, Factions, and Networks of Interests

Bendix, William; MacKay, Jon

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2618881

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…Our model of free agency has several dimensions. First, we argue that foreign policy free agents come from a wide variety of diverse circumstances that might incline them to sometimes turn away from long-standing foreign policy positions and the leadership within their parties (Bendix and MacKay 2017 ). In other words, free agents have complex motivations and objectives, ranging from a commitment to international causes to isolationism, and from support for interbranch cooperation to rejection of executive excess.…”

Section: A Multidimensional Model Of Free Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign policy free agents: how lawmakers and coalitions on the political margins help set boundaries for US foreign policy

Homan

Lantis

2022

Int Polit

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Bipartisan consensus on many US domestic and foreign policy priorities has seemingly collapsed in recent decades, and political parties have become qideologically polarized and divided. While some contend that these dynamics are narrowing the space for congressional foreign policy innovation, we argue that factionalism often fosters creativity in the foreign policy process. Specifically, this article explores the role of ‘free agent’ progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans in foreign policy decision-making. These members at the ideological extremes of their parties are finding common ground in anti-establishment views and concerns about executive excess, and they are aligning to challenge traditional foreign policy positions. This paper conducts a plausibility probe of a model of congressional foreign policy free agency based upon roll call voting on war powers-related decisions in the Obama and Trump administrations. During both presidencies, our findings suggest that the free agency model has predictive value for foreign policy maneuvering and offers a non-traditional way of thinking about contemporary US foreign policy development.

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Section: A Multidimensional Model Of Free Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign policy free agents: how lawmakers and coalitions on the political margins help set boundaries for US foreign policy

Homan

Lantis

2022

Int Polit

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“…We also used campaign endorsements from, or public associations with, prominent members of a faction during primary or general election campaigns. Affiliations with groups supporting candidates in elections based on ideological position were included, following literature that uses group alignment to determine factional allegiance (Bendix and Mackay 2017). Policy positions on campaign websites or in press statements were considered further indicators of factional proximity, as were ideological self-placements such as claims of being a moderate or progressive Democrat.…”

Section: Data and Research Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusivity and Decentralisation of Candidate Selectorates: Factional Consequences for Centre-Left Parties in England, Germany, and the United States

Cowburn

Kerr

2022

Political Research Quarterly

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In recent elections, ‘progressives’ in centre-left parties have advocated for more democratised processes of candidate selection. We test whether more inclusive and decentralised selectorates align with higher numbers of progressive candidates nominated in national legislative elections by centre-left parties across three advanced western democracies between 2017 and 2021. In the Labour Party, more centralised selectorates aligned with higher numbers of progressives selected. For the SPD, we report null findings, likely due to additional incentives for factional co-operation in a multi-party system. In our most decentralised case, the Democratic Party, selection of progressives was congruent with district partisanship rather than selectorate inclusivity, with progressives more commonly selected in safe rather than competitive or unfavoured districts. This relationship was not present in our other cases. These findings highlight the importance of the decentralisation dimension for the factional allegiance of legislative candidates nominated.

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“…Many voters and legislators pull together to follow their party's stance on issues, leading to polarization between parties (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015). At the same time, however, political parties can unravel and splinter, and they must constantly struggle to increase voter turnout (Green & Gerber, 2015), solicit campaign donations (O'Donnell, 2016), and suppress infighting among copartisan legislators (Bendix & Mackay, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulling for the Team: Competition Between Political Partisans

Huang

DeScioli

Murad

2021

Evolutionary Psychological Science

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To compete for power and resources, people form groups including political parties, special interest groups, and international coalitions. We use economic experiments to investigate how people balance the desire for their group's victory versus their own expenditure of effort.We design an economic tug of war in which the side that exerts greater costly effort wins a prize. In Experiment 1, participants compete individually or in teams, which were assigned arbitrarily. In Experiment 2, participants compete individually or in teams based on political partisanship, Democrats against Republicans. In both experiments, participants shirked by exerting 20% less effort in teams than in individual competition. Moreover, we did not find an effect of partisan framing: Participants exerted no more effort on political teams than arbitrary teams, contrary to theories asserting the automatic potency of partisanship. We discuss why it is difficult for groups, including political partisans, to mobilize in competition.

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Partisan Infighting Among House Republicans: Leaders, Factions, and Networks of Interests

Cited by 4 publications

References 52 publications

Foreign policy free agents: how lawmakers and coalitions on the political margins help set boundaries for US foreign policy

Foreign policy free agents: how lawmakers and coalitions on the political margins help set boundaries for US foreign policy

Inclusivity and Decentralisation of Candidate Selectorates: Factional Consequences for Centre-Left Parties in England, Germany, and the United States

Pulling for the Team: Competition Between Political Partisans

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