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This paper addresses the question of how national party leaders set their party’s policy positions. Currently, the literature on this question exhibits a gap between theory and reality; spatial models predict convergence of party policy positions in a two-party setting, while empirical scholars found divergence in real world situations. Our paper is an attempt to fill in this gap. We do so by introducing two additional issues that have been relatively neglected in the existing literature. First, we stress the importance of establishing a party label for national party leaders as part of a strategy for the goal of seat-maximization in addition to the Downsian convergence strategy. Second, we address the issue that national party leaders are likely to adjust their party policy positions in response to heterogeneous preference distributions of voters across districts, in which the party has varying degrees of success. Incorporating these two issues, we show in a simple spatial model that in a two-party, single-member plurality system, two parties’ positions on a given policy issue are likely to converge if the given policy issue is at stake in closely competed districts, while two parties’ positions on a given policy issue are likely to diverge if the given issue is at stake in districts where one of the parties already has a secure majority. We use the case of the US party system (1945-2000) as the empirical test and find that the regression results are consistent with this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ability of the National Rifle Association to affect turnout in House races in 1994, 1996, and 1998. We construct models of turnout in congressional elections that include NRA candidate endorsements and membership numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I suggest that debates about the relative success of development organizations and the associated the concept of "bridging" social capital can be linked and be enriched by insights from the literature on interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the civic potential of community-based energy. Through content analyses and participant surveys, we examine citizens' motivations for joining and participating in such organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a comparison of Japanese koenkai and American political machines in order to build an analytical framework with which to better understand reciprocal relationships between those in power and their constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the European Union changes national-level politics, focusing on the role of Euroskeptic political parties. I argue that (1) Euroskeptic parties are less likely to participate in government coalitions than are Europhile parties; (2) parties with an elite-mass division over the EU will have a Europhile leadership and Euroskeptic masses; (3) when parties change their positions on the EU, they will be more Euroskeptic when in opposition and more Europhile when in government; and (4) parties that are extremist on non-EU dimensions are more likely to be Euroskeptic. These results will not be found in majoritarian political systems because they stem from the party coalition formation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-private partnerships have existed in the United States since the colonial period. However, in particular, government and nonprofit interactions?embedded in social, economic, and political structures?have taken different forms and have varied over time, among different fields of service, and in different contexts. In recent times, especially in the last two and a half decades, not only has there been an expansion in the types of human services once provided primarily by government agencies, but also the list of viable not-for-profit providers continues to broaden including a variety of organizations. Scholars note that in this era of devolution, the trend towards ?privatizing? human services is expected to continue the advancement of networks and network structures between the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors in public policy implementation. Even the widespread use of terms like ?cooperation?, ?collaboration,? ?strategic alliances,? ?joint ventures,? and ?partnership? across the sectors have become commonplace. Moreover, public discourse in policy circles, academic arenas and in practice seem to accept the taken-for-granted benefits of such alliances with the increasing popularity of such approaches to address America?s social problems, even though there is limited research evaluating the actual nature and process of the effects of existing partnerships in light of theory. The following paper attempts to begin to fill this gap by exploring collaboration between government agencies and faith-based organizations utilizing principal-agent theory. Such arrangements may pose serious legal and administrative challenges that may not be easily overcome. Providing government services through contracts with private organizations raises traditional management and accountability concerns and have implications for public management, in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many analyses of comparative political systems, particularly in the study of coalitions and party systems, rest on assumptions about issue dimensionality. However, empirical measures of issue dimensionality have not kept pace. No cross-national measure exists that captures both variation between countries and within countries over time. Using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project this paper develops a measure of the effective number of issues dimensions, constructed similarly to Laakso and Taagepera?s Effective Number of Parties, that incorporate the relative weight of issues and their similarity. The measure is explained in detail theoretically, and empirical results for the postwar period for 17 West European countries are shown. The added value of this measure is shown in analyses of government durability. While prior cross-sectional estimates of issue dimensionality have not performed well, the effective number of issue dimensions has a significant, robust impact on government durability. The higher the dimensionality, the less durable government is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party identification and core values are central elements in mass belief systems that influence a wide range of more specific political evaluations, preferences, and behaviors. But how do these predispositions relate to one another? Does partisan bias color core values, or are partisan identities grounded in core values? My paper tackles this question as follows. I draw upon theoretical work on partisan bias and value-based reasoning to generate competing hypotheses about whether partisanship shapes values or values shape partisanship. I test these hypotheses by using structural equation modeling techniques to estimate dynamic models of attitude constraint with data from the 1992-94-96 National Election Panel Study. The statistical analyses reveal that (1) partisan identities are significantly more stable than the core values of equal opportunity, limited government, traditional family values, and moral tolerance; (2) party identification systematically affects these values; and (3) these values do not affect party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tests interest group hypotheses on state PACs in the health sector. A unique feature is a dataset connecting individual lobby groups registered in 1998 with individual PACs contributing money in ‘98. We also track nonconnected PACs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the relationship between voluntary group activity to political participation, hypothesizing and testing six unique means by which voluntary group members participate disproportionately in American politics. It also examines differential effects for local versus nationally-targeted participatory acts. A final section discusses implications of the chief findings: the multitude of ways in which voluntary organizations promote participation and their differential effects at the local and national levels. Data from the 1990 American Citizen Participation Study is employed.

The responsible party model is a benchmark for theorizing about political party reforms. I demonstrate the attractions of reconceptualizing party responsibility by emphasizing economic elements rather than the executive-legislative relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case study documents the creation, activities, and impact of an innovative, multidisciplinary organization established to give students practical experience in designing and managing political campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the connections between the degree of party policy dispersion in 15 party systems, and two important system-level variables: the electoral laws used to select representatives to the national legislature, and the number of political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes a spatial model of policy-seeking political parties contesting multiparty parliamentary elections under Proportional Representation. The key assumption of the model is that party elites believe that the median parliamentary party will control government policy outputs. The model is likely to support stable configuration of party policy strategies. The model also implies a centripetal effects of valence result.

We study a model of multi-party multi-dimensional electoral competition. The model accounts for empirically observed features of political systems despite the lack of Nash equilibria in models with more than two parties or more than one dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth and entailing political powers of civic organizations in the Korean society since the 1987 democratization movement influenced the changes of the government?s welfare strategy: from ?naked regulator? to ?hidden regulator?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some authors, party identification (PID) may not only increase with time, but can also decrease as a consequence of evaluation of parties’ performance. Theories related to ‘active’ learning state that people could learn from both positive and negative inputs. Campbell and his colleagues acknowledged that PID could consist of positive and negative feelings, although most research has focused on the positive side. It is not only that positive performance will lead individuals to prefer one party to another, but it is also the case that poor performance will lead them to choose a second best party, or in some cases no party at all. In these cases, the ‘hostility’ toward parties may be the main guide in defining PID. It has been argued that there are more chances of disliking one or more parties without liking any other in multiparty systems relative to two-party systems. Evaluations of party performance over time may give rise not just to positive feelings that enhance PID, but also may produce negative sentiments that decrease PID, or in some cases, increase hate toward a party, what has been defined as ‘negative’ PID. Two-party systems, as Britain or the United States, offer a partial setting for studying parties’ negative evaluations, mainly because competition is polarized, and even perhaps this is the reason why very few studies have been found on the subject. Conversely, a multiparty system facilitates the analysis of negative evaluations, expecting to find both people who have developed an attachment to a party and people that may hate other political parties. An ideal context to study such as the impact of negative evaluations is either the one-party systems, as post-Communist countries where it is expected to find certain degree of aversion to the former ruling party, or countries where long-ruling parties had governed but recently lost, like Taiwan or Mexico. Previous studies have distinguished positive from negative PID, by demonstrating the existence of two different kinds of attachment. Those respondents who mention that they would never vote for some party are said to have developed a negative PID. In contrast, I hypothesize that there is one sort of party attachment (that is PID) that may be guided by both positive and negative party evaluations. I hypothesize that positive and negative feelings are determinants of PID. For both Panistas and Perredistas the PRI should be the party they would never vote for. For the case of independents, I also hypothesize that even though these individuals do not hold a clear partisan attachment, they should hold a strong anti-PRI feeling, even stronger than towards any other party. In sum, looking at countries that ended up a one-party period or an authoritarian period gives an interesting but overlooked tweak that may advance research on PID by developing the concept of negative party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the last generation, there has been a decline in the proportion of individuals who identify themselves directly with either of the two major political parties in the United States. Rather than seeing tremendous growth in the proportion of individuals who identify as “pure” independents, most of the growth is in those categorized as “independent leaners.” (Keith, et al 1992) Though we have seen this shift in identification, there has not been a corresponding shift in the fundamental beliefs of any large group of society, indicating that there must be another explanation for the shift in party identification. I propose that the decrease in the proportion of individuals who identify with one of the two major parties can be attributed to a decrease in person-to-person contacting on the part of the two major political parties. This contacting serves as a priming mechanism, causing those who are contacted to be more cognizant of the connections between their own political stances and the stances of the political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contestation is a central element of democracy. Party competition disciplines political leaders and fosters more responsive government. Higher levels of two-way party competition are hypothesized to lead to more citizen satisfaction, controlling for ideological position and party loyalty. Data from 69 West German regional election studies over 25 years confirm this hypothesis. OLS regression analysis of individual-level data demonstrates a negative relationship between citizen satisfaction and one-party dominance. Time series cross-sectional analysis of regional-level data support this finding. Implications for decentralization and sub-national accountability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the contributions that political scientists have and can make to understand key socio-political aspects of natural and technological hazards and disasters. Such research can help us understand how these phenomena work, but Considerable public attention, at both mass and elite levels, has been paid to the political, policy, and administrative aspects of natural disasters since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. While other social science disciplines have been historically more attentive to natural hazards and disasters as important aspects of social science, a relatively small number of political scientists and policy process scholars have studied or are studying natural disasters. Not, not surprisingly given the scale of Hurricane Katrina, a considerable number of papers on the subject appeared on the program of the 2006 American Political Science Association, and interest in what disasters can teach us in political science has increased considerably. The papers presented at APSA included important aspects of Katrina and of hazards in general, including racial and class issues, urban politics and urban form, and problems of policy design, management, and implementation.Many of these papers were useful, and represent potential advancements in understanding, but many also shared a similar and troubling characteristic: they failed-sometimes in crucial ways-to reference the existing social science literature on natural disasters. Thus, some political scientists accept disaster myths (about looting and panic, for example) as truths. Others fail to fully understand the policy environment in which disaster policy is made or the substance of disaster policy itself. On the other hand, political scientists have a unique ability to understand the importance of institutions and individuals in the process of governance. This avenue of research could extend on the findings of sociologists that networks of people and organizations are important in disaster response and recovery. While networks are important, political scientists can illuminate how these networks perform within a set of formal and informal rules. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do states resist membership in some international organizations? This paper develops a framework that demonstrates the choice of institutions for resolving cooperation problems depends upon the verifiability of players' actions. Action non-verifiability issues can inhibit efficacy of some international organizations and lead to the punishment of compliant states. If actions are observable and verifiability, states can achieve first-best outcomes through a complete contract agreement enforced by a benevolent international organization. If actions are unobservable, second-best outcomes result due to costs of information rents. However, if one state's actions are observable and verifiable but the other state's actions are observable but nonverifiable, then the state with nonverifiable actions will exploit the other's enforced compliance in the international organization. The disadvantaged state will attempt to renegotiate for the enforcement of an incomplete contract by the international organization. If the enforcement of the incomplete contract is too costly, then either the disadvantaged state will continue to be exploited, retaliate with a nonverifiable response, or exit the international organization and devise a bilateral mechanism to capture the gains from trade. The paper examines the effects of nonverifiable nontariff barriers on international trade agreements and develops some policy implications for international organizations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a variety of Muslim communities and congregations in St. Louis, Missouri, particularly in terms of political participation and attitudes. It sheds light on how Muslim Americans are politically similar and different from one another and how various factors including ethnicity, race and gender affect political attitudes and activities. Findings are based on in-depth interviews of Muslims primarily from four main mosques in the greater St. Louis area, imams, and representatives from a variety of Muslim, interfaith, and cultural organizations. This paper is divided into two parts. The first outlines the history of the mosque, its congregations, and is largely based upon interviews with imams. The second half of this paper analyzes important findings from interviews with the larger congregations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development, strategies and goals of the Piqueteros movement in Argentina. We argue that the Piqueteros are a powerful new political actor which can bridge the gap between social movement and political party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the online presence of minor parties in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how grassroots community organizations act as a space in which men and women become politically empowered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Comparative Manifesto Project is the most widely used source of data for placing parties on a left/right dimension. Close analysis of these data, however, show that they are seriously flawed in terms measurement theory. This paper assesses thes ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on four years of combined fieldwork in the Gulf, this paper examines the emergence of private institutions of higher education in the Persian Gulf with a particular focus on new "American-style" universities in Kuwait. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the legal obligations of 501(c) non-profit groups when it comes to political activity and documents the extent of electioneering activities by 501(c) non-profit groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tests interest group theory against clientelist model in explaining ISI policy choices [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(How) are Democrats the "Mommy party" and Republicans the "Daddy party?" Drawing articles from seven newspapers, I use content analysis to assess the gendered treatment of the parties in news accounts related to the 2004 presidential election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of class is rethought through engagement with Weber, stratification theory, and feminist critiques to yield a novel theoretical framework for understanding the structure and politics of private organizations involved in social provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties attach brand names to issues, thereby giving citizens the signals they need to respond coherently to an array of questions. When we offer such signals in surveys, preferences exhibit far more constraint than previously recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how IGO network dynamics cause convergence in domestic economic policies. We find that the cumulative effects of multiple layers of even the weakest types of IGOs have strong converging effects on states' domestic policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the compensatory features found in Mixed Member Proportional electoral system and its analogues (such as those found in Hungary and Italy, until recently) provide incentives for strategic voting that has not received much scholarly attention: away from large parties in favor of small parties. This exists because the compensatory mechanisms cause list votes for larger parties come to be "wasted" if the party outperforms a minimum threshold in the nominal tier and the provisions for "overhang" seats in the MMP electoral system rewards a party that does well on the nominal tier for performing poorly on the list tier. The tendency, we suggest, is reinforced as the electoral environment becomes more fragmented. We uncover evidence from German Bundestag elections in the 1994-2005 period that suggests that this phenomenon is indeed known to the German voters and parties and that a nontrivial amount of strategic voting along the lines we propose does indeed take place. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies have applied Group Threat theory to explain differences in behavior across racial groups, this study examines the impact of group threat on interactions within the same racial group. We employ a new dataset collected from the Hurricane Katrina victims that were evacuated to Houston. Specifically, we analyze the differences in behavior between Katrina Evacuees and Houstonians in two experimental games: the dictator game and a public goods game. Our hypothesis is that feelings of threat amongst Houstonians with a similar SES as the Katrina evacuees and who live in close proximity to them will lead to lower offers in both games when Houstonians are paired with Katrina Evacuees as compared to when they are paired with other Houstonians. Our findings have significant implications for how group threat affects policy preferences that are seen to benefit groups construed as 'other'. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This panel will evaluate the interconnections between the public law and judicial politics field in political science and the Law and Society Association. The various distinguished scholars on the panel will, broadly speaking, explore the relationship ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct a model of Downsian electoral competition examining how the distribution of skill endowments across voters in majoritarian countries affects the optimal tariff rate proposed by political parties. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous models of the determinants of governance quality in the economics literature have essentially assumed an entirely domestic process, focusing on state-level variables and especially on several that change either very slowly or not at all. In contrast, this study draws on theories of international institutions from political science to investigate the idea that at least one international factor--participation in intergovernmental organizations--may play an important role in improving the quality of domestic governance practices, even in the short term. Participation in IGOs may serve to pressure or socialize state officials and whole governments into observing norms and practices of good governance. By requiring public commitments to commonly held goals and values, membership may also render governments more susceptible to political pressure from domestic and transnational groups seeking change. Furthermore, state leaders may actually seek to join IGOs in order to tie their own hands, make credible commitments, or seek cover for pursuing politically unpopular reforms, using IGOs as a tool to achieve difficult economic and political developmental ends. Analyzing World Bank governance data covering 125 countries from 1996--2002, I demonstrate that increased participation in IGOs has a significant positive effect on future domestic governance quality, even after controlling for a host of domestic factors previously shown to be powerful determinants. These findings suggest that the vicious cycles of predation and incapacity plaguing many developing states need not be permanent; joining international organizations may provide one way out. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines community conferences, a type of voluntary association of local governments, to determine the effectiveness of these organizations in brokering service sharing arrangements among cities. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The school of political thought known as the modern period has provided contemporary, liberal society with a theoretical basis (at least) for the rule of law and the association of men. While we might point to the strides societies have made toward the recognition of rights and the establishment of large associations of generally ordered and peaceful societies, for example, we must stop pretending that this is somehow rooted firmly in any reasonable notion of individual freedom. Most moderns, but especially Rousseau, bound up the notion of freedom with obedience and submission to one or many. Constant, on the other hand, recognizes that freedom cannot be what others allow an individual to do, but must be what the individual does not allow others to do to the self, what he calls independence. So rather than reflecting on our own existence with respect to others around us and calling it freedom, we should first figure out what freedom means and then apply it to our selves. The danger, of course, is that we might realize that we are not now, and have never been, free; that power and freedom are incommensurable.This, I would contend, is the result and is the greatest fear driving our motivation to calls ourselves free even when we clearly are not. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]