Individuals are the single largest source of campaign contributions, yet we know little about their motivations. For instance, the existing literature questions whether individual contributors ...sophisticatedly differentiate among candidates according to policy positions, particularly among same-party candidates. We analyze this issue by combining data from a new survey of over 2,800 in- and out-of-state donors associated with the 2012 Senate elections, FEC data on contributors' professions, and legislative records. Three major findings emerge. First, policy agreement between a donor's positions and a senator's roll calls significantly influences the likelihood of giving, even for same-party contributors. Second, there is a significant effect of committee membership corresponding to a donor's occupation; this holds even for donors who claim that other motivations dominate, but it does not appear to be motivated by an expectation of access. Third, conditional upon a donation occurring, its size is determined by factors outside a legislator's control.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, INZLJ, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
US House members have become increasingly reliant on out‐of‐district individuals for fundraising. Yet we have little evidence on how such donations might affect representatives' policy decisions. ...Given the high partisanship known to dominate House roll calls, do the preferences of individual donors influence policymaking at all? And are members who rely on out‐of‐district contributions more responsive to the preferences of the national donor base? This article examines these and related questions, producing three main findings. First, even accounting for well‐established partisanship in House voting, representatives are responsive to the policy preferences of the national donor base. Second, this donor responsiveness is positively associated with electoral safety, including when redistricting exogenously induces the safety. Third, the higher a member's reliance on out‐of‐district donations, the greater is their responsiveness to the preferences of the national donor base. Together, these findings suggest that current fundraising dynamics skew representation in significant ways.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PRFLJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
In recent years, a variety of countries worldwide have experienced an increase in executive power. Long‐standing concerns about this concentration include reduced property rights protection. ...Particularly for developing democracies, scholars theorize that a lack of institutional constraints on the executive may impede long‐term investment. Analyzing this question empirically has proven difficult, however, because economic activity can affect political institutions and behavior. This article, which analyzes four decades of data from 57 developing democracies, addresses the identification challenges by leveraging elections as a source of exogenous turnover and by accounting for the potential endogeneity of executive institutions. Consistent with the argument that institutional constraints reassure investors, the results suggest that as constraints on the executive increase, investment is less affected by prospective electoral turnover. Moreover, the results are stronger for presidential and semi‐presidential systems with fixed elections, where the chief executive's term cannot be ended early by elections or the legislature, than for parliamentary systems.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Scholarship finds that in states with judicial elections, public opinion affects judges’ decisions on hot‐button campaign issues such as the death penalty or marijuana legalization. Yet the ...literature leaves open the question of how public opinion affects judicial decisions on less salient issues, which not only dominate the dockets of state supreme courts but also encompass areas of major legal and policy significance. We consider one such issue that infrequently emerges in judicial campaigns, environmental law. Specifically, we collect an original dataset of over 5,000 judicial votes on nearly 1,000 cases heard in 40 state supreme courts from 1990–2014. We find that for the dataset as a whole, there is not a significant effect of public opinion on judicial decisions in any of the major judicial selection systems. However, in the few states in which environmental issues have been the subject of campaign attack ads, we find evidence of such a relationship during the years following the ads. These results contribute to a growing literature that suggests elections can reduce judicial independence from public opinion.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PRFLJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Presidential campaign contributions primarily come from individuals, yet we know little about what motivates them to give. Using a recent donor survey, we analyze how policy positions affect these ...decisions, holding constant partisan strength and presidential approval. Three main findings emerge. First, donor agreement with candidates’ positions significantly affects the likelihood of giving to these campaigns. Second, while there is suggestive evidence that the effects are stronger for Independents, the results hold even for fellow partisans. Third, conditional on donating, issue positions do not increase the amount contributed; for both partisans and Independents, the amount depends on wealth and income.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
How does public opinion affect presidential policymaking? We address this issue by testing a diverse set of hypotheses with data concerning a set of individual policies across time. In particular, ...the data revolve around presidential budgetary proposals on a set of major policy issues for which there are recurring surveys on citizens' preferences over spending. The analysis suggests that presidents are more responsive to mass opinion on issues that are familiar to citizens in their everyday lives. Also, for reelection-seeking presidents, responsiveness is shown to depend upon two key political factors. First, presidents are more responsive to public opinion when the next election is imminent. Second, the effect of presidential popularity is nonmonotonic; presidents with average approval ratings are most likely to adopt policy positions congruent with public opinion, whereas presidents with approval ratings that are significantly above or below average have the greatest propensity to take unpopular positions.
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7.
From Mass Preferences to Policy Canes-Wrone, Brandice
Annual review of political science,
05/2015, Volume:
18, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This article reviews recent research on how mass opinion affects policy making in the context of US national institutions. Three themes materialize. First, research provides compelling evidence for ..."responsiveness," in which change in mass opinion is associated with subsequent policy changes, but not for a high level of "congruence" between the policies that are favored by a majority of the public and those that are enacted. Second, although scholarship suggests that both congruence and responsiveness have declined since the 1970s, they are not low by historic standards; rather, mass opinion was particularly influential in that decade. Third, the literature rebuts conventional explanations for the post-1970s decline and suggests that standard proposals for how to reverse it would not significantly alter the impact of mass preferences on policy. The article concludes by considering the possibility that fundraising developments over the past three decades have changed politicians' electoral incentives.
While a large body of work exists on presidents' public approval, no study identifies the conditions under which approval generates policy influence. This gap is particularly significant since ...empirical research has produced inconsistent findings on whether popularity affects a president's legislative success. In the following, we argue that public salience and issue complexity determine the extent to which a president can capitalize on approval, and we proceed to test this hypothesis on U.S. House of Representatives roll-call votes between 1989 and 2000. The empirical analysis provides strong support for our hypothesis, which holds across a variety of econometric specifications and estimates of approval.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
Does a typical House member need to worry about the electoral ramifications of his roll-call decisions? We investigate the relationship between incumbents' electoral performance and roll-call support ...for their party—controlling for district ideology, challenger quality, and campaign spending, among other factors—through a series of tests of the 1956–1996 elections. The tests produce three key findings indicating that members are indeed accountable for their legislative voting. First, in each election, an incumbent receives a lower vote share the more he supports his party. Second, this effect is comparable in size to that of other widely recognized electoral determinants. Third, a member's probability of retaining office decreases as he offers increased support for his party, and this relationship holds for not only marginal, but also safe members.
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BFBNIB, CEKLJ, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
Issue Accountability and the Mass Public CANES-WRONE, BRANDICE; MINOZZI, WILLIAM; REVELEY, JESSICA BONNEY
Legislative studies quarterly,
02/2011, Volume:
36, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Under what conditions, if any, does the mass electorate hold congressional members accountable for their records on specific issues? We examine this question on the issue of crime, for which salience ...has varied substantially and opinion has favored Republicans, and the environment, for which salience has not varied much and voters have favored Democrats. Because different parametric specifications produce divergent findings, we utilize matching analysis in addition to ordinary least squares. The tests suggest that issue accountability exists even controlling for a member's overall record. However, such accountability depends crucially on issue salience and a member's partisan affiliation.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, INZLJ, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
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