December 2003 Authors and Abstracts

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Explaining Wars Fought by Established Democracies: Do Institutional Constraints Matter?

Extant research has shown that cross-national variations in the level of a country�s democracy tend to be related to its propensity to be involved in external conflict. The dyadic version of the theory of democratic peace contends that democracies rarely, if ever, fight each other, and it is strongly supported by the available evidence. The monadic version, suggesting that democracies are in general more peaceful regardless of the nature of the other party involved in a relationship, has been less well supported. This article addresses the latter proposition, seeking to explain the variations in war involvement among the established democracies on the basis of major differences in their institutions of governance. Among the various distinctions considered (such as parliamentary versus presidential forms of government, rule by a single dominant party versus a coalition government, and phases of the electoral cycle), a country�s electoral system turns out to be the most important institutional factor that dampens war involvement. Established democracies with a proportionate-representation system tend to have significantly less such involvement according to three alternative measures. We adduce insights from comparative studies of democratic politics to explain this major finding, thereby offering a more specific and cogent account of why this particular institutional arrangement matters for external belligerence.

Multiple Theoretical Traditions in American Politics and Racial Policy Inequality

The American (national) political tradition emphasizes three major strands of thought (Smith 1993, 1997). Grasping the importance, interrelationships, and potential tensions of these multiple traditions is central to understanding American politics, and perhaps especially so concerning issues of racial equality. This article first delineates the philosophical traditions as they are manifested in major research on American state politics. It then examines the consequences of those traditions, especially the two generally viewed as the most prominent in American politics�civic republicanism and liberalism�for several indicators of public policy that directly address racial equality. The evidence considered strongly suggests that research emerging from the two major traditions overlooks an important side of American politics, that concerning racial inequality (ascriptive hierarchy). Also, the argument underscores the importance of proper attention to multiple traditions, generally, and race, specifically, in American (state) politics. �

Whether and how governors influence public policies in the U.S. is open to question. This research tests a model of gubernatorial influence on public policymaking in which gubernatorial power is conceived of the governor�s power over the budgetary process relative to that of the state legislature. We argue that governors with greater control over the budget process will use those powers to deliver a higher proportion of policies that confer benefits to statewide versus more localized constituencies. As governors� electoral security increases, their willingness to support legislatively desired localized spending increases. Empirical results derived from pooled cross-sectional models largely support the models tested.

Agenda Setting in Congressional Elections: The Impact of Issues and Campaigns on Voting Behavior

Do issues matter? This article extends recent research on issue voting and campaign agenda-setting to voting decisions in congressional elections. We use a unique data set that includes information from a survey of candidates and campaign aides who competed in the 1998 House elections and a survey of individuals who voted in them. The study assesses the impact of campaign-specific variables on citizens� voting decisions, while controlling for relevant attitudinal and demographic factors. We find that when a candidate and voter agree on what is the most important issue in the election, the voter is more likely to vote for that candidate if that candidate�s party �owns� the issue. The effects of shared issue priorities are especially strong for independent voters.

Campaigns, Polls, and the States: Assessing the Accuracy of Statewide Presidential Trial-Heat Polls

Given the heavy reliance upon polls during election campaigns and the importance of state results in presidential election outcomes, this study examines the determinants of accuracy in statewide presidential trial-heat polls. Using Lau�s (1994) examination of national-level polls as a guide, we find that sample-related characteristics like sample size and the use of a likely voter sampling filter tend to improve the predictive accuracy of these polls. More importantly, however, we find that the number of days to election has an important impact on poll accuracy and that this effect can vary substantially across different campaign contexts.

Friends Don�t Let Friends Vote for Free Trade: The Dynamics of the Labor PAC Punishment Strategy over PNTR

Studies of PAC contribution strategies tend to focus on the ways in which PACs seek to buy access to legislators or elect candidates friendly to their interests. What do PACs do when those to whom they have given large sums of money vote against their interest on a key piece of legislation? We examine whether labor PACs followed a strategy of punishment in order to send a message to Democrats who supported the passage of Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China (PNTR) in May 2000. We find that labor PACs punished pro-PNTR Democrats in a measured fashion indicating a deterrent form of punishment. A harsher form of punishment strategy was followed in an attempt to incapacitate those pro-PNTR candidates who were most electorally vulnerable. This behavior indicates that contributions are not just inducements to vote favorably or attempts to purchase access.

�Social Networks and Political Participation: The Role of Social Interaction in Explaining Political Participation

The argument advanced in this article is that interaction in social networks has a strong, though often overlooked, influence on the propensity to participate in politics. Specifically, I argue that social interaction creates opportunities for individuals to gather information about politics that allows them to live beyond personal resource constraints, thereby supporting the political activity of many people. Using relational data from the South Bend Election Study, this article provides evidence that the effect of social interaction on participation is contingent on the amount of political discussion that occurs in social networks. Additional analysis shows the substantive and theoretical importance of such interaction by explaining how it is distinct from the effect of social group memberships and how it enhances the effect of individual education on the probability of participation. This key contribution of this article is to show that models of political participation that do not account for informal social interaction will be theoretically underspecified. It also shows that such interactions play a crucial role in explicating the role of other factors that predict participation, such as group membership and individual resources. �

Disentangling the Roles of Ideology and Issue Positions in the Rise of Third Parties: The Case of Argentina

This article examines why, in a system of high voter turnout, voters defect from traditional parties to third parties, and is especially focused on disentangling the roles of ideology and issue positions in voters� decision to switch allegiances. The empirical case that is examined is the emergence of the FREPASO coalition in Argentina. Multinomial logit regression is used to analyze the vote choice of respondents in an Argentine public opinion survey. The principal finding of this article is that the victories of FREPASO stem from its ability to fill a previously empty niche in the ideological spectrum of Argentine politics. Voters for FREPASO were left-of-center, and their left-wing ideology was in part an expression of their preference for greater government intervention in reducing differences between rich and poor people, but ideology had an impact beyond a mere expression of support for a stronger government role in the economy.

Feminist Organizational Structure in the White House: The Office of Women�s Initiatives and Outreach

In 1995, President Clinton established the first formally organized office for women�s issues in the Executive Office of the President (EOP): the Office of Womens Initiatives and Outreach (OWIO). The creation of the OWIO provides a unique opportunity to analyze the influence of gender on our governmental institutions. In this article, we explore feminist organizational theory and new institutionalism in organization theory using a longitudinal case study of the OWIO. We argue that a masculine organizational culture permeates the structure and processes of the EOP and that this culture ultimately shaped the success of the OWIO. This analysis not only helps us identify the gendered nature of the EOP, but also enables us to see how governmental institutions incorporate cultural and environmental experiences into their rules and daily routines.

Causes and Consequences of Public Attitudes Toward Abortion: A Review and Research Agenda

This article provides a critical review of empirical research on attitudes toward abortion among mass publics in the United States, with a view toward suggesting promising avenues for future research. We identify three such themes: Accounting for pro-life movement among mass attitudes in recent years, when the composition of the U.S. population would seem to trend in a pro-choice direction; explaining the sources of party polarization of the abortion issue; and anticipating changes in abortion attitudes which might result from public debate over human cloning.

Since the 1930s, polling organizations have asked Americans whether they �approve or disapprove of the job [the incumbent] is doing as president.� In the early 1970s, John Mueller started an academic industry by asking what drives these evaluations. American politics and the tools available to examine it have changed dramatically since then, inspiring a burst of research on presidential approval in the 1990s. We review this new body of literature, arguing that it builds on but differs importantly from earlier approval studies. Since Mueller�s writing, scholars have expanded his relatively simple model, taking account of presidents� goals and personal characteristics, other political actors, the ubiquitous media, and an inattentive public. We describe three waves of research, focusing on the most recent wave. We suggest that history, along with new intellectual currents, data, and methods have enabled each wave to incorporate more of political, social, and psychological reality. Finally, we identify the issues most likely to motivate presidential approval research for the next ten years.

�Strategic Voting in Presidential Primaries: Problems of Explanation and Interpretation

This note uncovers a serious flaw in Abramson et al.�s (1992) influential application of expected utility theory to the study of strategic voting in U.S. presidential primaries. Due to this flaw, it is not clear what theory their positive empirical results actually support. Rather than dismissing their findings as anomalous or simply as disconfirming expected utility theory, this note uses conditional expected utility theory, a basic revision of the standard approach to voting, to explain these and other results related to primaries.

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