Department of Political Science Publications

Regional Voting in Russia's Federal Elections and Changing Regional Deference to the Kremlin

William M. Reisinger et al. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:02:52 PDT

We analyze voting returns from ten federal-level Russian elections (1991-2008) using political, economic, social and demographic data to assess regional distinctiveness, clustering and change over time.

The Relationship between Turnout and Competition Levels in Russia

William M. Reisinger et al. — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:02:50 PDT

We examine voter turnout in the 89 administrative units comprising the Russian Federation for elections to the presidency and the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) from 1991 to 2007. Politics within these regions has come to vary substantially, and they therefore are apt cases for examining factors that drive turnout levels. The collapse of the Soviet Union introduced relatively free elections at the national level, which were gradually expanded to the subnational level with the popular election of regional executives. However, Vladimir Putin’s ascension to the presidency is now widely recognized as ushering in a new era, one of managed competition. From 2000 on, Putin gradually reasserted the influence of the central government--particularly the executive branch--over regional elections and ultimately eliminated the popular election of regional executives. Thus, although the factors explaining how regional turnout varies include economic and social conditions, voting levels should not always be equated with democratic participation since in extreme cases—such as the Russian Federation—the two may be negatively correlated. Our analyses illuminate the differences across Russian regions as well as between the Yeltsin and Putin years. We find substantial evidence of elite-driven turnout, accomplished in large part thanks to the persistence of patron-client ties.

[letter to the editor]

Michael S. Lewis-Beck — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:18 PDT

Minority Voices and Citizen Attitudes About Government Responsiveness in the American States: Do Social and Institutional Context Matter?

Rodney E. Hero et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:16 PDT

Previous research has shown that institutional factors, particularly 'direct democracy', along with racial context, shape policy outcomes in the fifty American states. But less is understood about the impact of such factors on attitudes towards government of racial and ethnic minorities. The passage of ballot initiatives targeting minority interests might be expected to have a negative effect on these groups. This study considers the impact of institutional and social context on attitudes about government responsiveness (external efficacy), drawing on pooled NES survey data from 1988-98 merged with state level data. Consistent with previous research, which was based on a single year, there is strong evidence that citizens in states with frequent exposure to direct democracy are more likely to perceive that government is responsive to their needs. At the same time, direct democracy did not have the hypothesized detrimental impact on racial and ethnic group attitudes towards government in general. State racial context also did not have a measurable impact on individual-level attitudes. Regardless of state environmental contexts, however, racial and ethnic minorities (with the exception of Latinos) reported less confidence in government than whites. The findings have broader implications, particularly given the growing racial and ethnic diversity and the ongoing politics of democratic inclusion in America.

Uncontested Seats and Electoral Competition For the U.S. House of Representatives Over Time

J. Mark Wrighton et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:15 PDT

We examine how changes in the incidence of uncontested seats for the US House of Representatives over time reflect responses to partisan change, changes in electoral rules, and long-term secular changes in the American political system We use a multiple interrupted times series model to test the relationship between the number of uncontested House seats from 1912 to 1994 and the 1932 realignment, midterm elections, the rise of the Republican South, redistricting, the abolition of crossfiling laws in California, and the pronounced rise of the incumbency advantage since 1966 We test models explaining the number of uncontested House seats occupied by each party and the difference between the parties in the number of those seats. We find that the rise of the Republican South started in 1964 and the incidence of midterm elections contributed strongly to changes in the overall rate of uncontested House races.

Residential Mobility and Voter Turnout

Peverill Squire et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:13 PDT

We examine the characteristics of a largely ignored low-turnout group--people who have recently moved. We find that neither demographic nor attitudinal attributes explain their lower turnout. Instead, the requirement that citizens must register anew after each change in residence constitutes the key stumbling block in the trip to the polls. Since nearly one-third of the nation moves every two years, moving has a large impact on national turnout rates. We offer a proposal to reduce the effect of residential mobility on turnout and estimate that turnout would increase by nine percentage points if the impact of moving could be removed. The partisan consequences of such a change would be marginal.

The Effect of Partisan Information On Voters in Nonpartisan Elections

Peverill Squire et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:12 PDT

How does partisan information affect individual voting behavior in nonpartisan elections? Using data from a 1982 California Poll survey on state supreme court confirmation elections we demonstrate that nonpartisan elections are easily turned into partisan contests in the minds of voters. Partisan information increases the probability of an individual holding an opinion on the elections, and results in votes which are based on the respondent's partisan identification and opinion of the governor who appointed the justice. The implications of these results for nonpartisan elections in general and merit retention contests in particular are also discussed.

The Theory of Legislative Institutionalization and the California Assembly

Peverill Squire — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:11 PDT

How do legislative bodies change over time? Polsby's (1968) examination of institutionalization in the U.S. House provides an organizational framework to assess how a legislature develops. I argue that the process of legislative institutionalization is driven by the membership's career goals. Because members of the California Assembly have different career ambitions than U.S. Representatives, application of institutionalization to the Assembly produces important contrasts with the House. Examination of data collected on the Assembly from 1951 to 1985, particularly with an interrupted time-series model, reveals that the Assembly has increased internal complexity, and, on many but not all measures, it has established well-defined boundaries. But, while the Assembly meets some minor standards of universalistic criteria and automatic methods, it fails to employ seniority as the main rule for the distribution of positions of power. Seniority does not matter because, I argue, more discretionary and particularistic methods better serve the career needs of the Assembly membership. This analysis suggests important implications for the utility of the concept of institutionalization.

Professionalization and Public Opinion of State Legislatures

Peverill Squire — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:10 PDT

Using a seven-state survey I examine how closely people follow the activities of the state legislature, how much contact they have with its members, and how they evaluate its performance. In particular, I investigate whether legislative professionalization level or district size influences how people see their legislature. Professionalization has a positive relationship with contact but has a negative relationship with attention level and performance rating. Constituency size exhibits little influence except on contacts.

Preemptive Fund-Raising and Challenger Profile in Senate Elections

Peverill Squire — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:08 PDT

Since 1980 the amount of money raised by incumbent senators during the first four years of their terms has increased dramatically. A widely held belief is that having a large campaign account well before the election scares the strongest potential challengers from making the race. Findings presented here show that almost every senator now engages in extensive early money raising, but that those senators who have the biggest number of potentially strong opponents back home are the most active in this regard. Large sums of early money do not, however, produce weaker challengers. Instead, the strength of the challenger is usually dictated by the size of the pool of strong candidates; where the number is large, one of the better candidates will make the race. Early money raising does not threaten the competitiveness of Senate elections.

Member Career Opportunities and the Internal Organization of Legislatures

Peverill Squire — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:07 PDT

Legislatures employ a variety of organizational schemes to determine how positions of power are distributed within them. I propose and test a theory relating the internal organization of a legislature to the political career goals of its members. Examining the lower legislative house in California, Connecticut, and New York, I demonstrate that each body offers its members a different political career path, and that the particular ambition is promoted by the internal organization of the legislature. New York assemblymen have career ambitions and seniority matters in gaining positions of power in that body. California assemblymen have progressive goals and operate in a system which allows any member to gain power quickly. In Connecticut, where legislators have discrete ambitions, seniority is not important and power is centralized.

The Limits of Protectionism: Building Coalitions for Free Trade. By Michael Lusztig. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 2004. 288p.

John A. C. Conybeare — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:04 PDT

This is an ambitious and useful book that takes the reader through eight cases of governments that tried, with mixed results, to guide their countries from protectionism to free trade. A successful strategy requires the government to make allies of the industries that can transform themselves and survive in a more competitive environment ("flexible rent-seekers") and quickly to kill the industries that cannot ("inflexible rent-seekers"). Michael Lusztig adopts from the classic public choice literature the term rent-seekers, a group that seeks to effect a zero sum transfer from others to itself, usually resulting in a negative sum game for society, by the amount of the transaction costs necessary to effect the transfer.

Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists. By Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier and Bradford S. Jones. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Frederick J. Boehmke — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:02 PDT

The study of durations in political science has been on the rise over the last decade and a half. Their application spans major research questions in virtually every field, including the duration of parliamentary governments, international conflict, policy adoptions in the U.S. states, and issue emergence in campaigns. Testing theoretical arguments regarding these and other questions involving durations has led political scientists to learn about and rely upon statistical models for durations, often referred to as event history models. Perhaps more than models for other classes of data, learning about event history models, particularly those for continuous-time data, presents a formidable task. This is partly due to the unique language of the models (e.g., terms like "spell," "failure," "frailty," and "hazard") that developed through their application in other disciplines, but also because of the new concerns that they involve. For example, how should one control for duration dependence? Is the proportional hazards assumption met?

Race Blunts The Economic Effect? The 2008 Obama Forecast

Michael S. Lewis-Beck et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:01 PDT

The October 2008 issue of PS published a symposium of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the accuracy of their models. In summer 2008, our Jobs Model forecast a Democratic presidential candidate two-party popular vote share of 56.6%, which would deliver the incumbent party the biggest defeat of any post-World War II contest (Lewis-Beck and Tien 2008). However, we argued, from our analysis of different experimental and observational evidence, that this unprecedented victory would be prevented by racially intolerant voters. We estimated the net racial cost of being a black candidate and corrected our overall forecast downward to 50.1% for Barack Obama. The unparalleled economic crisis, initiated after the release of our summer forecasts, prompted a reconsideration; the unique shock to the economy was no ordinary campaign perturbation. We calculated that the ensuing boost to anti-incumbent economic voting would add approximately two percentage points to the opposition; therefore, we issued a public revision of our forecast to 52.0 % for Obama (Lewis-Beck 2008). We are pleased that this final forecast fell so close to the actual result of 53.5%. Nevertheless, we contend the actual result should have been much closer to our original forecast. Given the dismal state of the polity and the economy prior to the election, the Obama victory should have been much bigger, as we show below.

Reforming Presidential Nominations: Rotating State Primaries or a National Primary?

Caroline J. Tolbert et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:13:00 PDT

As part of their ongoing efforts to address frontloading and other perceived problems, both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) proposed revised schedules and rules for 2008. The major changes for the Democrats were that two new states were allowed to join Iowa and New Hampshire in violating the official February 5 start date. The idea was that these states -- Nevada from the West and South Carolina from the South -- would enhance participation by more diverse populations (Latinos and African Americans). While the Republican rules called for states to lose half of their delegate vote if they violated the timing rules, the Democrats implemented a "death penalty" requiring any state violating the timing rules to lose all of its delegates. The New York Times called these changes the biggest shift in the way Democrats have nominated their presidential candidates in 30 years. Yet in the end these changes did little to lessen frontloading, as 70% of all delegates were actually chosen by the beginning of March. Two large states (Michigan and Florida) defied both national parties and voted before February 5.

Iowa: The Most Representative State?

Michael S. Lewis-Beck et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:12:58 PDT

There are perhaps many good arguments for Iowa maintaining its "first in the nation" status, in terms of the presidential nomination process. The strongest, however, would seem to be an argument that it is representative of the nation as a whole. That is, somehow, Iowa is a microcosm of the national political forces, faithfully mirroring the relevant electoral structures and choices of the macro-stage. This belief is certainly held by some. Palo Alto County, in northwestern Iowa, has long been considered a presidential bellwether, faithfully voting with the winning candidate in a series beginning in 1916. But as media worthy as that fact might be, it seems most likely a product of chance, for its heavily rural, northern European-descended population make it far from demographically representative of contemporary America (Lewis-Beck and Rice 1992, 4-6). A similar charge is commonly made today against the state as a whole, by political commentators across the land. But is it true? Is Iowa really unrepresentative? That is the question we seek to answer.

Reforming the Presidential Nomination Process

Caroline Tolbert et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:12:57 PDT

The 2008 presidential nomination was marked by the most aggressive frontloading in recent history; the process was a mess from the outset. Frontloading is the trend in recent presidential nominations in which states schedule their primaries and caucuses near the beginning of the delegate-selection season to have a greater impact on the process. In 1976, 10% of the delegates had been chosen by March 2. In 2008, 70% of the delegates had been chosen by that same date. As part of their ongoing efforts to address frontloading and other problems, both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) revised the schedules and rules for 2008 presidential primary elections and caucuses.

The Job of President and the Jobs Model Forecast: Obama for '08?

Michael S. Lewis-Beck et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:12:55 PDT

The statistical modelers are back. The presidential election forecasting errors of 2000 did not repeat themselves in 2004. On the contrary, the forecasts, from at least seven different teams, were generally quite accurate (Campbell 2004; Lewis-Beck 2005). Encouragingly, their prowess is receiving attention from forecasters outside the social sciences, in fields such as engineering and commerce. Noteworthy here is the recent special issue on U.S. presidential election forecasting published in the International Journal of Forecasting, containing some 10 different papers (Campbell and Lewis-Beck 2008). Our contribution in that special issue explored the question of whether our Jobs Model, off by only 1 percentage point in its 2004 forecast, was a simple product of data-mining (Lewis-Beck and Tien 2008).

Comparing Caucus and Registered Voter Support for the 2008 Presidential Candidates in Iowa

David Redlawsk et al. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:12:53 PDT

As the 2008 presidential nominating process got underway, Iowa's coveted status as first-in-the-nation appeared increasingly in jeopardy, as states engaged in aggressive frontloading throughout 2006 and 2007. In the past, late March primaries in large states like Florida, New York, and California were irrelevant to the electoral outcome. To avoid a repeat in 2008, Florida moved its primary to January 29 and California moved to what is now being called "super duper Tuesday" on February 5 when nearly two dozen states will hold primaries. Under pressure from extra-early voting in Florida and other front-loading states, as we write this the Iowa caucuses are to be held on January 3, two days after New Year's. It seems possible that as a result of the nominating season becoming more condensed, there may be an increase in the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, the opposite of what the states moving earlier wanted. If the first nominating events are now the starter's gun in a 50-meter dash rather than a mile run, who gets off the starting blocks first may well matter even more. As Hull (2007, 66) argues, Iowa's impact on New Hampshire and the national nomination process is a "wild, wired one." In this rapid sea of a changing nomination process we take a close look at the Iowa electorate, both statewide registered voters and a subset of likely caucus attendees, to shed light on the underpinnings of support for the presidential candidates in the early stages of the 2008 campaign, using unique rolling cross-sectional data to track opinion change over time.

2008 and Beyond: The Future of Election Reform in the States -- Editor's Introduction

Caroline Tolbert — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:12:51 PDT

This forum is a unique opportunity to bring social science research to bear on public policy and the practical effects of election reforms in the American states. It is also an opportunity to study America's election system, building on the research of some of the leading scholars working in this area. The American states offer a natural laboratory (a "œlaboratory of democracy"), with significant variation in the rules, institutions, and procedures governing elections. This forum empirically evaluates what we have learned about the effects of various election reforms in the 50 states. The papers included in this forum were originally presented at a conference hosted by Kent State University's department of political science and which had a title similar to that of this symposium. The theme is now shared by the conference and this symposium: that the 2008 presidential election will be crucial for American democracy, especially in light of the apparently related phenomena of decreasing (or flattening) voter participation rates, low trust in government and political efficacy, alleged procedural irregularities in recent elections, uncompetitive congressional elections or uncontested state legislative elections, and lapses in ethical judgment by politicians in the past decade.