POS 3263 Final
Southern Realignment 1965-1994 and polarization
1932-1965: two wings of the democratic party: northern wing = liberal, and the southern wing = racially conservative, sometimes voted with democrats, sometimes the republicans. Thus, the congressional government was like a 3-party system. After the southern realignment, when the southern democrats left the party and were replaced by republicans, all conflict came down to party v. party - just like we see today.
"The efficiency gap"
= a measure of how gerrymandered a states map is
Biased Pluralism
= economic elite + organized interests "Winner take-all politics" (Hacker and Pierson). The difference in wealth between those who participate in interest group activity and those who don't is greater than the gap between voters and non-voters. Wall street is better organized than Main street.
Economic Elite Domination
= economic elites + citizens Marxist interpretations oligarchy. Elected officials are responsible for wealthy citizens, but not the middle or upper class. Theory - US Constitution was designed to protect private property and wealth of the economic elite.
Majoritarian Electoral Democracy
= to all + citizens Jacksonian democracy, and the Median Voter Theorem. Voters with a single point preference -> two distinct parties will aim to get as close to that in order to win. Doesn't work out in reality (it will collapse) however it is a good way to predict situations.
Majoritarian Pluralism
= to all + organized interests. Federalist No.10 "Polyarchy". Big enough constituency area = help to prevent one specific group from becoming too influential. There are multiple sources of power in any democracy, so all organized interests are able to get their way to some degree. = Common folk and wealthy groups are both served through interest groups.
Majority-minority districts
A subdivision in which one or more racial minority, makes up the majority of the local population.
Partisan gamesmanship
Broader set of things that parties bad to make the other side look bad at the expense of national interest. E.g., hostage taking, veto blame game.
Consider this example, based on Broockman's paper ("Approaches to Studying Policy Representation"): Citizen A believes that it should be illegal to be a millionaire (i.e., that the government should tax all income above $999,999.99 at 100%) and also that all undocumented immigrants should be deported immediately, with a wall built on the southern border. Citizen B believes that tax rates should go back to where they were before the Trump Tax Cuts and also that there should be a tentative path-to-citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, provided they serve in the military or go to college and pay back-taxes. How would traditional ideological scaling classify these two citizens?
Citizen A is moderate and Citizen B is liberal
In "Distorted Communication, Unequal Representation," what does Broockman learn about the relationship between politicians and citizens?
Citizens are more likely to reach out to a politician from their same ethnic group
"Leapfrog Representation"
Citizens are stuck in the middle, facing a choice between a candidate more liberal they would like, and a candidate more conservative they would like. This causes them to go from party to party.
Ideological extremity/moderation in representatives and citizens
Citizens tend to be more moderate than representatives. Citizens evaluate representatives based on if they match their operational ideology.
"The Blame Game" (presidential veto)
Congress passes an extreme (but symbolically popular) bill, forcing the president to make a public veto. E.g., GWB and Childs health insurance program.
Hostage-taking
Congress refuses to pass legislation, in an attempt to get policy concessions or to make the president look bad.
Cracking and Packing
Cracking = diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts. Packing = concentrating the opposing party's voting power in single district to reduce their voting power among other districts
Independent redistricting commissions
Draw maps that are 75% safer than those alternatives.
Redistricting in Florida 2022
Electoral efficiency is the goal and parties want to disperse their votes out over as many districts as possible
Which of the following is NOT one of the avenues for electoral reform that Mann & Ornstein discuss?
Encouraging new types of candidates to run for office
According to Kalla & Broockman, nearly all prior empirical research on the impacts of monetary donations on the behavior of legislators shares what common short-coming?
Endogeneity
According to Broockman in "Approaches to Studying Policy Representation", citizens who are regarded as more ideologically moderate based on the scaled ideological score approach to studying issue preferences are indeed more likely to support moderate policies than citizens who are as measured as being more extreme.
False
Compared to D.C., statehood has more support in Puerto Rico.
False
Cracking and Packing as a gerrymandering strategy
Gerrymandering = the drawing of legislative boundary linens for the purpose of obtaining a partisan advantage. A district is gerrymandered when the share is manipulated to determine which party will win it - by cracking or packing.
Gerrymandering and legislative polarization
Gerrymandering can't be the primary cause because the Senate cannot be redistricted (and we see polarization there). However, gerrymandering may insulate the most extreme representatives from general election challenges
Evidence from Gilens & Page: which of the four best describes the US?
Government is most responsive to the wealthy and to interest groups, but not to the typical American.
Mann & Ornstein in It's Even Worse than it Looks describe a strategic disagreement tactic in which Congress refuses to act on some issue in an attempt to receive policy concessions or make the president look bad. What term do Mann & Ornstein use to describe this strategy?
Hostage-taking
"Party fit" on the Republican side
Idea that holding office is more valuable if you fir ideologically within your party. Moderates are a poor fit in both parties.
Symbolic disagreement
If the president is the minority party in Congress, the other side will oppose non controversial bills just because the president supports them (Block-out party policy)
Tradeoff between packing minorities into districts
In a 50-50 state, the best way to ruin efficiency for the other side is packing. The majority will want to pack their votes into a small number of districts. The other party should spread votes out across districts = you are able to maximize the number of district your party wins.
According to Gilens & Page, which of these statements would be most accurate?
In the US, rich people and organized interests tend to dominate the policymaking process
According to Bawn et al. in "A Theory of Political Parties," who are the key actors who organize political parties?
Interest groups
Ideological "extremity" v. extremity on the issues
It is possible to be ideologically extreme while hold ideologically consistent positions. Extremity on the issue = holding extremely conservative, or liberal positions. You could hold extreme positions and still be moderate.
"Closeness-of-margins"
It worsens polarization as elections come closer and control of government is more tenuous, parties will do whatever they can in the short-term to gain political points. If margins are close, the parties will do whatever they can --> polarization/dysfunction.
The effect of presidential position-taking on legislative polarization
Legislative affairs are more polarized. The president is most visible partisan figure in America. If they take a position on anything, the other side generally opposes it to rally their base against the president.
Race effect on communication between legislators and constituents
MCs from both parties tend to not communicate with black aliases. However, black MCs communicate with their black constituents. Constituents are more likely to write to MCs of the same race as them.
Filibuster (and cloture) rules in US Senate
Most bills can be filibustered in Senate = if 41 senators disapprove, they can hold the floor and talk forever theoretically. If you get 60 senators to vote yes on cloture, the vote stops. However, you only need one senator to hold the filibuster. You need all 60 there to vote for the cloture to end. Mann & Ornstein argue that all 41 should be there to listen.
Representation (or lack thereof) in US territories
None of the five territories and nor Washington DC, have voting members of Congress. Only DC gets to vote for the president. Therefore, about 3% of Americans of color are disenfranchised in some way, compared to less than 0.2% of white Americans.
Polarization effect on the House of Representatives v. the Senate
Polarization has made the house more efficient, but the Senate totally gridlocked. Senate requires compromise unless one party has the supermajority The house abides my majority rule, so polarized parties = more efficient legislative process.
Selective incentives and public interest groups
Public interest groups need to offer selective incentives to get people to contribute to collective actions. E.g., the AARP offers discounted insurance to get people to join, and the NRA offers firearm training to get people to join.
Gender disparity gap in representation
Since women tend to be more liberal, they tend to be moderate in the GOP. Meaning it will be a worse fit on the Republican side.
Incumbency protection
State legislative pacts
Mismatch between parties and governing institutions
System of policy making the has two houses, and a separate presidency = required compromise and working together and the parties today are unable to do what it needed for the public interest.
Which of these reforms, although popular in public opinion, do Mann & Ornstein suggest is unlikely to curb polarization and gridlock?
Term limits for MCs
Which event, used as an example of dysfunction in Washington, is the central focus of the first section of Mann & Ornstein's It's Even Worse than it Looks?
The 2011 debt ceiling crisis
In "Approaches to Studying Policy Representation", Broockman identifies a common problem with ideological scaling techniques that have been used in political science research. What is the problem he identifies?
The assumption that people do not have distinct views on distinct issues separate from what we'd expect based on their ideology.
Which of the following is NOT one of the theories of interest group formation that your textbook Congress and it's Members mentions?
The bargaining hypothesis
Polarization
The degree to which roll-call voting breaks down along party lines.
Bawn et al. theorize that there is a policy region where aggregate electorates do not enforce policy preferences. What do they refer to this region as?
The electoral blind spot
According to Bawn et al., what is the primary purpose of political parties?
To help organized interests get policy outcomes more extreme than typical citizens want.
According to Desilver, over half of the women who have ever served in the Senate took office in 2000 or later.
True
Why party polarization catalyzes dysfunction in Washington, DC
Via conditional party government. Party leaders have more power from individual MC's (specifically senators) to gum up the legislative process and to score short term political point at the longer term national well-being.
Which of these best summarizes Mann & Ornstein's primary argument in It's Even Worse than it Looks?
We currently have a fundamental mismatch between how our parties operate and our system of policymaking institutions.
Conditional Party Government
When parties are internally unified and polarized from each other, individual members of congress will delegate party leadership to achieve party goals
Measurement assumption - do citizens think ideologically? Fair assumption?
When the ideological score is used, people use ideology to make political decisions, including to inform their issue positions
In "To Emerge?" by Bernhard et al., income in and of itself is found not to predict whether a qualified woman will run for office, but what related thing does predict whether she will or not?
Whether her family depends primarily on her income
Women's hesitation to run (dependent families)
Whether her family depends primarily on her income; "being the breadwinner"
Which of the following statements best describes Butler & Broockman's research findings?
White legislators of both parties discriminate against Black aliases, while Black legislators of both parties respond more frequently to Black aliases.
According to Broockman (again, in "Approaches to Studying Policy Representation"), which of these is the more valid approach to studying policy representation?
Within issues, by comparing representatives' positions to those of their constituents on distinct issues.
Traditional recruitment methods and men
Women are less likely to be recruited by traditional recruitment networks. Women are more sensitive of economic realties that dissuades them from running. They tend to be more apprehensive about running, even if they are more qualified.
Racial Gerrymandering
legal - creating majority-minority districts. Illegal - dilute the votes of protected classes of citizens.
Partisan Gerrymandering
legal. legislators can redistrict based on their political party to give themselves the advantage. influences the house not the senate.
