Voting

Abstract: A debate exists over whether ~and to what degree! the democratic peace is explained by joint democracy or by a lack of motives for conflict between states that happen to be democratic. Gartzke ~1998! applies expected utility theory to the democratic peace and shows that an index of states’ preference similarity based on United Nations General Assembly roll-call votes ~affinity! accounts for much of the lack of militarized interstate disputes ~MIDs! between democracies. Oneal and Russett ~1997b, 1998, 1999! respond by arguing that UN voting is itself a function of regime type—that democracy “causes” affinity. Oneal and Russett seek to demonstrate their thesis by regressing affinity on democracy and other variables from a standard model of the democratic peace. I replicate results reported by Oneal and Russett and then extend the analysis in several ways. I find that the residuals from Oneal and Russett’s regression of affinity remain highly significant as a predictor of the absence of MIDs. Further, significance for democracy is shown to be fragile and subject to variable construction, model specification, and the choice of estimation procedure. A fundamental positive goal of international relations is the explication of costly contests—students of world politics seek to understand why states fight. A fundamental normative goal of international relations is of course the alleviation of such contests. The democratic peace—the observation that liberal dyads seldom engage in militarized disputes—is exciting precisely because it offers important opportunities for addressing both of these goals. Still, unification of the two goals remains contingent on the character of the explanation. Any account that fits the facts is potentially useful in positive terms, but to fulfill the normative objective, accounts must offer causal variables either that are socially manipulable or that trend in a desirable direction. If the causes of the democratic peace lie in liberal politics or economics, then the foreign policies of leading powers or the inexorable march of time may yield an expanding sphere of pacific relations. If instead the democratic peace is substantially explained by variables that are unresponsive to autonomous policy efforts or that are more likely to wander than to trend, then the prospects for long-term peace remain in greater doubt.

Abstract: In the postwar United States the president's party has always done worse in the midterm congressional elections than in the previous congressional election. Republican administrations exhibit below-average, and Democratic administrations above-average, economic growth in the first half of each term, whereas in the latter halves the two see equal growth. Our rational expectations model is consistent with these two regularities. In presidential elections, voters choose between two polarized candidates. They then use midterm elections to counterbalance the president's policies by strengthening the opposition in Congress. Since presidents of different parties are associated with different policies, our model predicts a (spurious) correlation between the state of the economy and elections. Our predictions contrast with those of retrospective voting models, in which voters reward the incumbent if the economy is doing well before the election. Our model performs empirically at least as well as, and often better than, alternative models.

Abstract: We examine the effects of voting for the winners and losers of presidential and congressional elections on political trust. On the basis of survey and electoral data for 1972 and 1996, we argue and demonstrate empirically that presidential winner–loser status systematically affects citizens' trust in government. We find that voters for the losers of the presidential contest show lower levels of trust. Moreover, we find that voting for the congressional winners does not attenuate this effect. Political trust is highest among voters who voted either for both the presidential and congressional winners or the presidential winner and congressional losers; trust is lowest among those who voted for both the presidential and congressional losers or congressional winners and the presidential loser.

Abstract: We develop and test a neoinstitutional model of Senate roll call voting on nominees to the Supreme Court. The statistical model assumes that Senators examine the characteristics of nominees and use their roll call votes to establish an electorally attractive position on the nominees. The model is tested with probit estimates on the 2,054 confirmation votes from Earl Warren to Anthony Kennedy. The model performs remarkably well in predicting the individual votes of Senators to confirm or reject nominees. Senators routinely vote to confirm nominees who are perceived as well qualified and ideologically proximate to Senators' constituents. When nominees are less well qualified and are relatively distant, however, Senators' votes depend to a large degree on the political environment, especially the status of the president.