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Edited by Fred M. Shelley Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox. Interest Groups in American Campaigns: The New Face of Electioneering. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1999. 186 pages. $19.95 paperback [...]

Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why by Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnacki, David C. Kimball, and Beth L. Leech. Chicago, IL, University of [...]

The political impact of Dr. Eleanor Lansing Dulles has not been assessed in her capacity as a power broker who brought her theological understandings to Cold War United States policy. The deep influence of both her brothers—Allen, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and John Foster, Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower—on global affairs and diplomacy has been the topic of myriad studies. Works draw extensively on family biography, noting that both "nature and nurture" brought religion to US foreign policy. Including Dr. Dulles in the analysis provides nuance and complexity to definitions of Christian nationalism and underscores the legacy of both missionaries and religious thought in US foreign relations during the early Cold War. Contextualizing religiosity through a study of gender and the Dulles family legacy of female missionaries into the Cold War narrative builds upon the existing literature of the Dulles family, religion, and Cold War diplomacy to challenge concepts such as Christian internationalism, Christian nationalism, and Left–Right binaries. Diplomacy is revealed as her form of Christian missionary work in the secular sphere. Eleanor Lansing Dulles became a missionary not for a religion, but for a nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Politicos (01215167) is the property of Universidad de Antioquia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Information is central to designing effective policy, and policy makers often rely on competing interests to separate useful from biased information. We show how this logic of virtuous competition can break down, using a new and comprehensive data set on U.S. federal regulatory rulemaking for 2003–2016. For-profit corporations and nonprofit entities are active in the rulemaking process and are arguably expected to provide independent viewpoints. Policy makers, however, may not be fully aware of the financial ties between some firms and nonprofits—grants that are legal and tax-exempt but hard to trace. We document three patterns that suggest that these grants may distort policy. First, we show that shortly after a firm donates to a nonprofit, the nonprofit is more likely to comment on rules on which the firm has also commented. Second, when a firm comments on a rule, the comments by nonprofits that recently received grants from the firm's foundation are systematically closer in content to the firm's own comments, relative to comments submitted by other nonprofits. Third, the final rule's discussion by a regulator is more similar to the firm's comments on that rule when the firm's recent grantees also commented on it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the Czech Republic's ability to promote its interests in international organizations (IOs) through its citizens' personnel representation. It defines two levels of such ability. First, the selection and preparation, coordination, and use of a state's human capital in the IOs. Second, agenda-setting, the presence of a „national perspective" in the IOs, and the adoption of common objectives of the IOs. The analysis is primarily based on the 46 semi-structured interviews with Czech citizens, current and past employees in selected IOs (European Defence Agency, OSCE, NATO, Council of Europe, International Organization for Migration, OECD) conducted between the years of 2018 and 2019. The Czech case analysis identified several shortcomings in the setting, coordination, and the use of the personnel policy. It confirmed the role of the personnel policy on the state's ability to promote its interests in the IOs and showed that success in promoting the interests of the state does not depend so much on the „volume," but instead on the „quality" of personnel representation, and the ability of the state personnel policy to use its citizens in the IOs to achieve its goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to analyze invalid votes under compulsory voting in Peru. I analyzed three Peruvian presidential elections (held in 2006, 2011, and 2016). I investigated the results of these elections at the municipal level, examining the first and second rounds separately. Thus, I created an original dataset that includes 5,478 cases from each round. I used the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models to test theories related to invalid votes. First, I found that the higher the level of development in municipalities, the lower the number of invalid votes in municipalities. Second, I examined a feature of runoff voting and found that the higher the share of votes for eliminated candidates in the first round, the greater the number of invalid votes in the second round. These results suggest that invalid voting is linked to socioeconomic grievances and that electoral abstention under non-compulsory voting transforms into invalid votes in the second round under compulsory voting when voters' choices are limited. These findings contribute to the current research on invalid voting, electoral systems, and electoral behavior in Peruvian municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lua Nova is the property of CEDEC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although some past studies suggest that candidates may receive more votes when their names are listed first among their competitors than when they are listed later, two recent studies challenged this conclusion with regard to major-party candidates running in statewide races and raised questions about the impact of analytic methods on the conclusions of name-order research. Using the largest data set to date—a set of quasi-randomized natural experiments involving 402 candidates running in 76 statewide California elections—this study tests a series of hypotheses about the conditions under which name-order effects are most likely. Regardless of the analytic method used, a small primacy effect appeared consistently that could have a substantive impact on some contests. This effect was larger in races for lower-visibility offices, in years with higher turnout, and in races that were not close. All of this is consistent with the claim that name-order effects occur among voters who have little or no information about the candidates or among voters who feel ambivalence about the candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data on citizens’ ideological preferences and state policy outputs, this article examines the linkage between how well citizens’ preferences are reflected in state government policy decisions and their level of confidence in state elected officials. The analysis reveals that citizens report less confidence in state government as the ideological distance between themselves and state policy outputs increases and that the substantive effect rivals other common predictors of confidence in government. Notably, this relationship is stronger among respondents with higher levels of political interest and holds only for evaluations of state government and not of local or the federal government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examine how the growth in vote-by-mail and changes in voting technologies led to changes in the residual vote rate in California from 1990 to 2010. In California’s presidential elections, counties that abandoned punch cards in favor of optical scanning enjoyed a significant improvement in the residual vote rate. We also conduct the first analysis of the effects of the rise of vote-by-mail on residual votes. Regardless of the election, increased use of the mail to cast ballots is robustly associated with a significant rise in the residual vote rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A persistent challenge for minority candidates is mitigating negative effects attributed to their unpopular group identity. This was precisely the case for Mitt Romney, a Mormon, as he sought and captured the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. We draw on existing public opinion data about the tepid reaction to Romney's Mormonism from within Republican ranks. Then, we review our own experimental data to examine a potential mitigation strategy, “God Talk,” and its emotional costs to the GOP. We find that Romney and similar candidates may avoid direct penalty by party rank-and-file for their minority attributes when using God Talk, but the associated affective response supporters direct at their party may carry yet-unknown putative costs for both party and candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is widely presumed that political support is contingent on satisfaction with the policy decisions made by political authorities. Yet, there is little evidence that support for the nation’s chief legislative branch is a function of its policy outputs. This research shows that Congress’ approval ratings are linked to the degree important legislation deviates from the public’s ideological mood. The results of an error-correction model show that these policy origins of support are as important as other determinants of approval such as partisan conflict and the economy. The effect of policy divergence from public opinion is also accentuated during periods of unified government when there might be a normative expectation that shared partisan control should translate into policy success. The findings substantiate conventional wisdom regarding the relationship between congressional approval and policy, spatial theories of voting, and models of the electoral behavior of congressional members. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies of ballots have traditionally focused on roll-off, candidate order, and partisan advantage. This study is among the first to assess the impact of ballots on individual-level voter errors. We develop new hypotheses by bringing together theoretical insights from usability research and political science about the effects of ballots with and without a straight-party voting option. By comparing voters' intentions to the votes they cast, we are able to create two measures of voter errors: votes unintentionally cast for the wrong candidate and unintentional undervotes. Voters generally make fewer errors of both types when using a standard office-bloc ballot than when using an office-bloc ballot with a straight-party option, with the number of wrong-candidate errors substantially exceeding the number of unintentional undervotes. Voters' background characteristics have a significant impact on their ability to vote without error. Our results offer a new perspective for evaluating the use of the straight-party option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We begin with a look back at the field to identify themes of recent research that we expect to continue to occupy researchers in the future. As part of this overview, we characterize the themes and topics examined in research about measurement and survey questions published in Public Opinion Quarterly in the past decade. We then characterize the field more broadly by highlighting topics that we expect to continue or to grow in importance, including the relationship between survey questions and the total survey error perspective, cognitive versus interactional approaches, interviewing practices, mode and technology, visual aspects of question design, and culture. Considering avenues for future research, we advocate for a decision-oriented framework for thinking about survey questions and their characteristics. The approach we propose distinguishes among various aspects of question characteristics, including question topic, question type and response dimension, conceptualization and operationalization of the target object, question structure, question form, response categories, question implementation, and question wording. Thinking about question characteristics more systematically would allow study designs to take into account relationships among these characteristics and identify gaps in current knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The American Political Science Review peer review process relies on the professionalism and generosity of those who contribute their time to read and evaluate the work of others. The Co-editors thank these scholars for serving as manuscript reviewers between September 1, 2010, and August 31, 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors uncover evidence that citizens’ priorities about various spheres of legislative representation differ across demographic groups and that these differences are subsequently reflected in the in-office behavior of their elected officials. Specifically, African Americans and Latinos are less concerned than whites with policy representation—the attentiveness of elected officials to citizens’ policy preferences—but place more emphasis on their district receiving its fair share of federal money. Citizens with higher incomes place a higher priority on policy representation and less on constituency service than do those with lower incomes. Importantly, these priorities map onto their member of Congress’s behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does partisan conflict damage citizens' perceptions of Congress? If so, why has polarization increased in Congress since the 1970s? To address these questions, we unpack the 'electoral connection' by exploring the mass public's attitudes toward partisan conflict via two survey experiments in which we manipulated characteristics of members and Congress. We find that party conflict reduces confidence in Congress among citizens across the partisan spectrum. However, there exists heterogeneity by strength of party identification with respect to evaluations of members. Independents and weak partisans are more supportive of members who espouse a bipartisan image, whereas strong partisans are less supportive. People with strong attachments to a political party disavow conflict in the aggregate but approve of individual members behaving in a partisan manner. This pattern helps us understand why members in safely partisan districts engage in partisan conflict even though partisanship damages the collective reputation of the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models of presidential success have sometimes focused on the importance of political capital and sometimes looked at the partisan environment of Congress. We develop time-series models of success that refine and integrate these perspectives while reframing the matter in terms of research on congressional parties. Measures of the ideological and partisan makeup of Congress are used to explain presidential success from 1953 to 2006 but the approval of the president’s base is important as well. We also show the electoral consequences to congressional parties of presidential success—congressional parties gain and lose seats based on the battles won and lost by the president. This gives legislators (not) of his party an incentive to see his agenda implemented (defeated). Studying both the causes and consequences of presidential success in Congress is meant to integrate theories of the two institutions along with extant theories of party behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ballot questions often feature obscure and legalistic language that is difficult to comprehend. Because the language of ballot questions is often unclear, the authors hypothesize that questions with lower readability will have higher roll-off because voters will not answer questions they do not understand. The authors use an objective measure of readability to code readability scores for 1,211 state-level ballot questions from 1997 to 2007. Using hierarchical linear regression models of state-level data, the authors find that increased complexity leads to more roll-off. The authors further analyze some possible influences on readability by examining whether it is affected by the question topic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Changes during the last decade have significantly altered the nature of election administration and driven up its costs. Interviews with practitioner representatives from the elections community reveal a number of issues that continue to influence this field. Expense data from two counties illustrate how policy changes affect election costs. Scheduled ending of federal funding threatens a 'perfect storm' in election finance that may undermine hard-won advances from 2000 to 2010. Possible cost reduction measures as well as critical challenges facing election administration are forecast for 2010 and the years ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the relationship between the preferences of American voters and the preferences of the U.S. legislators who represent them. Using an Internet-based, national opinion survey in conjunction with legislator voting records from the 109th and 110th Congresses, we show that members of Congress are more extreme than their constituents, i.e., that there is a lack of congruence between American voters and members of Congress. We also show that when a congressional legislator is replaced by a new member of the opposite party, one relative extremist is replaced by an opposing extremist. We call this leapfrog representation, a form of representation that leaves moderates with a dearth of representation in Congress. We see evidence of leapfrog representation in states and House districts and in the aggregate as well: the median member of the 109th House was too conservative compared to the median American voter, yet the median of the 110th House was too liberal. Thus, the median American voter was leapfrogged when the 109th House transitioned to the 110th. Although turnover between the 109th and 110th Senates occurred at approximately the same rate as between the 109th and 110th Houses, the Senate appears to be a more moderate institution whose median member does not move as abruptly as that of the House. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problems in the 2000 presidential election, especially in Florida, initiated a large-scale shift toward new voting technology. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data, we report on the effects of changes in voting systems in Florida and Michigan. The variety of initial conditions and the numerous changes make these excellent case studies. We find that reforms succeeded in reducing the residual vote. Every change from old to new technology resulted in a decline in residual votes that was significantly greater than in areas that did not change voting equipment. The percentage of residual votes in the 2004 presidential race in localities that changed voting systems was well under 1 percent, representing a 90 percent reduction in error in Florida and a 35 percent reduction in Michigan. We run these analyses separately for undervotes and overvotes. Using ecological-inference techniques, we investigate the persistence of residual votes when technology changed and find very little persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisan divisions in American politics have been increasing since the 1970s following a period where scholars thought parties were in decline. This polarization is observed most frequently within the debates and deliberation across issues within Congress. Given that most studies of public opinion place the behavior of elites at the center of public attitudes, surprisingly little research examines the effect of partisan conflict on the mass public. This research examines quarterly congressional approval data from 1974 to 2000 to determine the consequences, if any, of party conflict on the dynamics of congressional approval. The findings indicate that over-time changes in partisan conflict within Congress have a direct and lasting effect on how citizens think about Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative campaign advertisements have been depicted by many observers as a scourge on American politics. One facet of the case against negative ads—that such commercials discourage voter turnout—has been studied extensively in the past decade. In contrast, a second criticism—that negative advertisements produce corrosive effects on mass attitudes—has received less attention. This is unfortunate as it would be highly consequential for American political behavior if exposure to negative campaign ads breeds widespread cynicism and antipathy toward politics, disapproval of political institutions and elected officials, and a decline in political efficacy. We examine these charges in the context of the 2002 U.S. midterm elections. Merging data on political ads from the 2002 rendition of the Wisconsin Advertising (WiscAds) Project with individual-level data collected via the 2002 Exercising Citizenship in American Democracy Survey, we devise a thorough and multifaceted test of the case against negative advertising. Our analyses do not provide empirical support for the charges levied against negative campaign ads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]