The Impact of Constituency Diversity upon the Competitiveness of U. S. House Elections, 1962-96

Does democracy “suffer” from diversity? Issue representation and diversity in senate elections

“…The findings of this work depend crucially on how diversity is measured (Koetzle 1998, Gronke 2001. In general, when diversity is measured using demographic characteristics that do not account for the propensities of particular groups to associate with one of the major parties -as is the case for the widely-used Sullivan Index 1 -we find that diversity has minimal influence on election outcomes (Fiorina 1974, Bond 1983Koetzle, 1998). However, diversity has been found to influence other aspects of the democratic process.…”

“…Higher scores reflect increased demographic diversity. However, as Koetzle (1998) notes, the Sullivan Index poorly reflects the primary quantity of interest in studies of representation, political diversity. To account for political diversity, we incorporate an additional measure, Ideological Diversity, which is defined as the variance of respondents' seven point ideological self-placements-as recorded in the American national Election Study: Pooled Senate Study-by state.…”

“…Here, scholars examine the degree to which increased citizen diversity leads to safe or competitive seats in the House (Fiorina 1974, Bond 1983, Koetzle 1998. The findings of this work depend crucially on how diversity is measured (Koetzle 1998, Gronke 2001.…”

“…Here, scholars examine the degree to which increased citizen diversity leads to safe or competitive seats in the House (Fiorina 1974, Bond 1983, Koetzle 1998. The findings of this work depend crucially on how diversity is measured (Koetzle 1998, Gronke 2001. In general, when diversity is measured using demographic characteristics that do not account for the propensities of particular groups to associate with one of the major parties -as is the case for the widely-used Sullivan Index 1 -we find that diversity has minimal influence on election outcomes (Fiorina 1974, Bond 1983Koetzle, 1998).…”

“…Bullock and Brady 1983, Bailey and Brady 1998, Jones 2003, electoral competitiveness (e.g. Fiorina 1974, Bond 1983, Koetzle 1998, Bond, Campbell and Cottrill 2001, and party competition (Aistrup 2004) to examine how constituent diversity influences representation in election campaigns. In so doing, we present the first examination of how diversity conditions the positiontaking behavior of senate candidates.…”