Political Research Quarterly

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 1065-9129

Issue Number

Latest documents

Explaining Perceptions of Climate Change in the US
A significant proportion of the US population does not believe that climate change is a serious problem and immediate action is necessary. We ask whether individuals’ experiences with long-run changes in their local climate can override the power of partisanship that appears to dominate this opinion process. We merge individual-level data on climate change perceptions and the main determinants previously identified by the literature with county-level data on an exogenous measure of local climate change. While we find that local climate change significantly affects perceptions and in the expected direction, partisanship and political ideology maintain the strongest effect. We then field a randomized online experiment to test whether partisanship also drives support for pro-climate policies and the willingness to make environmentally friendly individual choices.
Interbranch Warfare: Senate Amending Process and Restrictive House Rules
While the U.S. House and Senate differ in many significant ways, perhaps the most important is the ability of House leaders to control the legislative process through the usage of special rules, which establish the terms of debate on a bill and can limit the number and content of amendments allowed. House members of both the majority and minority party have complained about their recent increased usage. In contrast, the Senate lacks a comparable tool and scholars have reported sharp increases in the number of floor amendments being proposed. In this paper, we examine the increase in proposed floor amendments in the Senate; arguing that, in addition to an increased value from electoral position-taking, the procedures employed in the House influence the floor behavior of senators. Specifically, we find that senators are more likely to offer amendments to bills that were passed under a restrictive rule in the House.
Mavericks or Loyalists? Popular Ballot Jumpers and Party Discipline in the Flexible-List PR Context
Preference voting threatens the power of party leaders in PR contexts to enforce party unity and pursue policy by encouraging candidates to groom personal reputations. This study posits that party leadership might be able to enforce party discipline through other means at their disposal even as their control over candidates’ election ranks weakens. These include access to the party label and distribution of senior legislative- and party positions. Using original data from the Czech flexible-list PR context covering the period between 1996 and 2021, this study shows that the MPs who are elected thanks to preference voting are no more likely than their colleagues to individualize their legislative behavior or cast a dissenting roll-call vote. What is more, these popular MPs face a more restricted access to reelection and senior positions that come with agenda-setting power and exposure. This evidence suggests that political parties take active steps to limit the autonomy of the MPs who owe their positions to voters.
More than Mere Access: An Experiment on Moneyed Interests, Information Provision, and Legislative Action in Congress
Campaign donors and corporate interests have greater access to Congress, and the legislative agenda and policy outcomes reflect their preferences. How this privileged access converts into influence remains unclear because petitioner-legislator interactions are unobserved. In this article, we report the results of an original survey experiment of 436 congressional staffers. The vignette manipulates a petitioner’s identity, the substance of the request, and the supporting evidence being offered. We test how likely staff are to take a meeting, to use the information being offered, and to recommend taking a position consistent with the request, as well as whether they perceive the request to be congruent with constituent preferences. Donors and lobbyists are no more likely to be granted access than constituents, but staffers are more likely to use information and to make legislative action recommendations when the information source is an ideologically aligned think tank. Subgroup analysis suggests these effects are particularly strong among ideological extremists and strong partisans. And, information offered by aligned think tanks are thought to be representative of constituent opinion. Our results reveal the partisan and ideological predispositions that motivate legislative action that is more costly than merely granting access.
Selling them Short? Differences in News Coverage of Female and Male Candidate Qualifications
We draw on research from gender stereotypes and mass communication to develop and test an innovative theoretical framework of implicit and explicit gender framing. This framework delineates how and when coverage in newspapers will report on female candidates differently than male candidates. Implicit gender frames subtly draw on masculine stereotypes to reinforce patriarchal power structures through their coverage of political candidates. Explicit gender frames are the overtly sexist “hair, hemlines, and husband” coverage women receive more frequently relative to men. We argue that the print news media will be more likely to rely on implicit gender frames to elucidate differences between women and men running for political office. Using an exhaustive content analysis of Senate campaign news coverage, we find important differences in the coverage of women and men running against one another. We also find the use of explicit gender frames to be especially common in all-female races. These differences in coverage, especially in all-women contests, can perpetuate stereotypic beliefs that women lack the qualifications needed for political office among voters, and stymie women’s progress toward parity in representation.
Shaming in a Shameless World: The Broken Dialectic of the Self
Until recently, shame culture was considered a powerful weapon for maintaining the status quo. Furthermore, it was also considered anti-democratic. Yet nowadays, in the hands of the weak, it has become a powerful weapon for challenging the status quo. It appears that the efficiency of shame has increased in an allegedly shameless society. This article seeks to clarify such conundrums by employing the largely forgotten dialectic of the self to highlight the difference between “being ashamed” within one’s inner self and “feeling shamed” in one’s outer self, as evinced in the usages of two different words for “shame” in Hebrew and Greek. By contrasting Socrates with Diogenes the Cynic, this approach shows not only why not being able to be ashamed within one’s inner self is a sign of a totalitarian self but also why such a self can become more vulnerable to external acts of shaming.
More than Mere Access: An Experiment on Moneyed Interests, Information Provision, and Legislative Action in Congress
Campaign donors and corporate interests have greater access to Congress, and the legislative agenda and policy outcomes reflect their preferences. How this privileged access converts into influence remains unclear because petitioner-legislator interactions are unobserved. In this article, we report the results of an original survey experiment of 436 congressional staffers. The vignette manipulates a petitioner’s identity, the substance of the request, and the supporting evidence being offered. We test how likely staff are to take a meeting, to use the information being offered, and to recommend taking a position consistent with the request, as well as whether they perceive the request to be congruent with constituent preferences. Donors and lobbyists are no more likely to be granted access than constituents, but staffers are more likely to use information and to make legislative action recommendations when the information source is an ideologically aligned think tank. Subgroup analysis suggests these effects are particularly strong among ideological extremists and strong partisans. And, information offered by aligned think tanks are thought to be representative of constituent opinion. Our results reveal the partisan and ideological predispositions that motivate legislative action that is more costly than merely granting access.
Selling them Short? Differences in News Coverage of Female and Male Candidate Qualifications
We draw on research from gender stereotypes and mass communication to develop and test an innovative theoretical framework of implicit and explicit gender framing. This framework delineates how and when coverage in newspapers will report on female candidates differently than male candidates. Implicit gender frames subtly draw on masculine stereotypes to reinforce patriarchal power structures through their coverage of political candidates. Explicit gender frames are the overtly sexist “hair, hemlines, and husband” coverage women receive more frequently relative to men. We argue that the print news media will be more likely to rely on implicit gender frames to elucidate differences between women and men running for political office. Using an exhaustive content analysis of Senate campaign news coverage, we find important differences in the coverage of women and men running against one another. We also find the use of explicit gender frames to be especially common in all-female races. These differences in coverage, especially in all-women contests, can perpetuate stereotypic beliefs that women lack the qualifications needed for political office among voters, and stymie women’s progress toward parity in representation.
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Imperative Patriotism and Minority Candidacies: Examining the Role of Military Status in Racial Evaluations of South Asian Candidates
South Asians have seen an increase in representation at all levels of US government, from Congress to the Vice Presidency, yet a paucity of work has been done examining South Asian candidates in America. The distinct nature of South Asian candidacies allows us to examine the intersection between race and religious identity and how emphasizing different social and political identities impact minority candidate evaluations. We theorize the potential effects of racial-political stereotyping of South Asians, focusing specifically on how a Hindu or Muslim background may negatively influence candidate evaluation. Additionally, we consider whether military service has any effect on evaluations of South Asian candidates as dangerous or deficient. We test this theory with a survey experiment that varies both South Asian religious identity, political ideology, and military service. Our findings indicate that white respondents are more hostile to South Asian candidates when compared to white candidates with similar biographies, and that respondents are particularly hostile to Muslim candidates. Cueing military service alleviates this handicap for Muslim candidates, but further analysis reveals that military service only improves perceptions among Democratic respondents.