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Despite the lingering suspicions of many Americans, there is little evidence to support the notion that increased negativity in campaign politics has contributed to the erosion of public trust in government over the past few decades. In this paper, we use data from a controlled experiment to look at the relationship between negative campaigning and political trust in a different light. The so-called "figure-ground hypothesis" suggests that one reason why negative information is (sometimes) more effective than positive information in shaping people's perceptions and behavior is because the former tends to "stand out" in a world where most of us have positive expectations of others - including public figures, if not always politicians as a class. Accordingly, we would expect that negative campaign ads are most effective (in terms of shaping citizens' vote preferences and candidate evaluations) among those who express a high level of trust in their political leaders. The catch, of course, is that high levels of trust are relatively uncommon in contemporary U.S. politics, in which case negative appeals presumably play to a smaller audience than many candidates and consultants seem to believe. In fact, our data provide only limited support for the figure-ground hypotheses and show instead that a well-conceived negative campaign ad can influence the choices of voters regardless of their underlying feelings about government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the literature on congressional change has established that both the House and Senate have become increasingly polarized along party lines over time, this conclusion is limited primarily to patterns of voting behavior. An exploration of another legislative practice, bill cosponsorship, reveals that while partisan polarization in the House has increased over time, the same is not necessarily true for the Senate. Using data on bill cosponsorship for the 93rd through 110th Congresses, this paper presents two conclusions. First, over time, House members have become more exclusive in their cosponsorship decisions, associating primarily with members of their own party. Second, and in contrast to this, the cosponsorship ties among senators have become more bipartisan; in recent years, more senators have adopted ?50-50 networks,? or cosponsorship networks composed of equal numbers of members from both parties. These results suggest that the increasing partisan polarization for which this era has become known may not be as prevalent as we have thought. Rather, when we scratch below the surface of roll call behavior and explore the informal relationship-building activities of legislators, we find that differences in the institutional structures of the House and Senate, such as membership size and length of term, may create different behavioral outcomes in each chamber. This paper contributes to our understanding of congressional development by examining the polarization story from a new angle and recognizing that the House and Senate are two unique institutions, each requiring its own theoretical framework to be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is evidence that negative advertising "works" at least some of the time, it has been suggested that going negative poses a special risk for female candidates because it violates expectations about appropriate behavior that are rooted in the traditional gender stereotypes still held by many voters. In this paper, we employ data from a survey experiment to examine gender differences in the effectiveness of one particular attack made by a challenger against an incumbent of the opposite sex in a hypothetical race for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our interest is not limited to the attack itself, however, but extends to the question of how candidates should respond when they are attacked and whether certain types of responses/rebuttals (including counterattacks) work better for men than they do for women, and vice versa, in terms of mitigating the damage inflicted by an initially successful negative ad. Overall, we find little indication that the effectiveness of either attack or response (denial, counterattack, counterimaging, justification, and accusing one's opponent of mudslinging) varies significantly according to candidate gender. Further, shared partisanship appears to matter more than shared gender in shaping how voters react to the campaign messages of male and female candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, political elites have manipulated issues to attract supporters and improve their reelection chances. I argue that, across time, minority party leaders have looked to emerging social movements as indicators of issues of increasing salience. While the rise of the movement gives minority elites the opportunity to reshape their party's image and attract new supporters, interest groups at the center of the movement provide the resources necessary for the party's success. As an example, I point to the connection between the Republican Party and the Christian Right. Prior to the 1960s, neither major party took a definitive stand on cultural issues such as abortion and gay rights. However, Republican elites began working with leaders of the emerging Christian Right and added these issues to their party's platform. By focusing on their opposition to abortion and gay marriage, the party was able to attract movement supporters and, in 1994, win a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1953. Using a measure of issue salience created through a search of the New York Times, a time series analysis indicates that increases in the publication of articles on cultural issues immediately precede increases in the election of Republicans to Congress. Furthermore, this pattern does not appear for other types of issues. I argue that this theory of minority party agenda manipulation can be applied to other cases across history, suggesting that the minority party may play an important and previously unrecognized role in framing the political agenda. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is evidence indicating that negative advertising "works" (at least some of the time), little attention has been given to the question of how candidates should respond when they are attacked. As a first cut at assessing the effectiveness of several response strategies, this paper considers the views of academics, professional consultants, and ordinary citizens who participated in two focus groups on the topic of political advertising. We proceed from the assumption that uncivil attacks on relevant topics (those that speak to how a candidate will perform in office), if well-crafted and credible, are most likely to have the desired outcome and, hence, are the ones that targeted candidates can least afford to ignore. The next stage of our research will use experimental data to test the relative effectiveness of four response types: counterattacks (favored by most consultants), counterimaging, justifications, and excuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]