1. Ideology and Strategic Party Disloyalty in the US Congress.
- Author
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Slapin, Jonathan B. and Kirkland, Justin H.
- Subjects
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LEGISLATIVE voting , *DISLOYALTY , *IDEOLOGY , *UNITED States political parties , *UNITED States legislators - Abstract
We offer a theory of strategic party disloyalty to explain roll call voting by members of the US House. Our theory suggests that ideologically extreme legislators become markedly less loyal to their party when they move to majority party status as a way to grandstand for their extreme constituents and maintain an ideological brand. In contrast, ideological moderates become noticeably more loyal when they transition to the majority to extract distributive benefits from party leaders. Moreover, because this strategic disloyalty is linked to legislators' efforts to win re-election, we expect these behaviors to be exaggerated on final passage votes relative to procedural votes. Using ideal point estimates and measures of party unity during roll calls over 35 years of House activity, our empirical evidence largely supports our expectations and demonstrates that individual legislators adapt their levels of party loyalty over time as an interactive function of their own ideology and their majority party status. In sum, ideologically extreme and ideologically moderate legislators respond to the transition from minority to majority party status in fundamentally different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014