research
Journal articles:
The Effect of Political Competition on Democratic Accountability
Forthcoming, Political Behavior. Online Appendix available here.
Representing uncompetitive, homogeneous constituencies is increasingly the norm for American legislators. Extensive research has investigated how competition affects the way representatives respond to their constituents’ policy preferences. This paper explores competition’s effect on the other side of representation, how constituents respond to their legislators’ policy record. Combining multiple measures of state competitiveness with large-N survey data, I demonstrate that competition enhances democratic accountability. Voters in competitive states are more interested in politics, more aware of the policy positions their U.S. senators have taken, and more likely to hold them accountable for those positions at election time. Robustness checks show that these effects are not due to the intensity of campaigning in a state: general competition, not particular campaign activities, drives citizens’ response. The recent increase in uncompetitive constituencies has likely lessened the degree to which legislators are held accountable for their actions in office.
Forthcoming, New Media & Society. With Lindsay H. Hoffman and Dannagal G. Young.
The role that emotions play in shaping mass political behavior is increasingly well researched. This study refocuses the debate to explore the effect that the emotions expressed by candidates (target affect) through new media have on participation, rather than the effect of emotions felt by voters (observer affect). A unique experiment embedded in a nationally representative online survey demonstrates that appeals invoking target affect can strongly increase citizens’ political participation both online and off. Contrary to fears that the use of emotions by political elites will agitate the least knowledgeable citizens, however, the results demonstrate that it is the most politically engaged citizens who are mobilized by such appeals. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the participatory consequences of emotional political messages on the Internet.
Which Buck Stops Here? Accountability for Policy Positions and Policy Outcomes in Congress
2011. Journal of Politics 73(3) 764-782. Online appendix available here.
What do constituents hold their representatives accountable for? Previous work outlines two distinct but often conflated theories of accountability: democratic theory suggests that voters respond to the policy positions representatives take; retrospective voting theories suggest that they respond to the outcomes of these policies. Using new survey data, this paper demonstrates that perceived congruence with their senators' policy positions influences voters' decisions much more than do perceptions of peace and prosperity. This finding holds when correcting for endogeneity using instrumental variables analysis, when considering members of the majority and minority parties separately, and when looking at specific policy areas. Replicating previous studies of retrospective voting suggests that they over-stated the importance of policy outcomes for congressional elections due to omitted variable bias. The buck that stops with Members of Congress is for the positions they take, not for the policy outcomes they preside over.
Constituents’ Responses to Congressional Roll-Call Voting
2010. American Journal of Political Science 54(3): 583-597. With Stephen Ansolabehere.
Do citizens hold their representatives accountable for policy decisions, as commonly assumed in theories of legislative politics? Previous research has failed to yield clear evidence on this question for two reasons: measurement error arising from non- comparable indicators of legislators’ and constituents’ preferences; and potential simultaneity between constituents’ beliefs about and approval of their representatives. Two new national surveys address the measurement problem directly by asking respondents how they would vote and how they think their representatives voted on key roll call votes. Using the actual votes, we can, in turn, construct instrumental variables that correct for simultaneity. We find that the American electorate responds strongly to substantive representation. (1) Nearly all respondents have preferences over important bills before Congress. (2) Most constituents hold beliefs about their legislators’ roll call votes that reflect both the legislators’ actual behavior and the parties’ policy reputations. (3) Constituents use those beliefs to hold their legislators accountable.
Book chapters:
Who Sings in the Heavenly Chorus? The Shape of the Organized Interest System and Political Voice through Organized Interest Activity
2012. In The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy, by Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [With Traci Burch, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady].
Dyadic Representation
2011. In The Oxford Handbook of the American Congress, edited by Eric Schickler and Frances E. Lee. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [With Stephen Ansolabehere].
Strategic Voting in the United States
2009. In Duverger’s Law of Plurality Voting: The Logic of Party Competition in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, Bernard Grofman, Andre Blais, and Shaun Bowler. [With Barry C. Burden].
Working papers:
Revisiting Stereotypes of Non-White Politicians’ Ideological and Partisan Orientations
2013. Under review. Prepared for presentation at the 2013 MPSA meeting.
This research revisits when and how voters use race as a cue for politicians’ ideological and partisan orientations. Using an embedded survey experiment that manipulates the race and policy positions of a (fictitious) Member of Congress, I provide a more comprehensive view of the role of ideological and partisan stereotypes in impression formation. Voters perceive non-White politicians as more liberal and more likely to be Democrats than otherwise-identical White politicians. This stereotyping persists even when the politician takes counter-stereotypical positions (e.g. a Black or Hispanic politician with a conservative record), and shapes non-White legislators’ approval ratings in significant ways.
Constituents’ Responses to Descriptive and Substantive Representation in Congress
2013. Under review. Prepared for presentation at the 2012 APSA meeting.
Previous research suggests descriptive representatives may be less accountable for substantive representation, due to voters overestimating policy congruence or downplaying its importance in their evaluations. Using a unique survey sample and experiment that manipulates the race and policy positions of a fictitious legislator, I show that descriptive representation shapes responses to substantive representation in significant but limited ways. Regardless of their actual record, Black voters perceive greater congruence with Black legislators, and White voters approve more strongly of White legislators. This is consistent across policy domains: descriptive representation does not have a particularly pronounced effect on responses to racial issues.
Economic Voting Appeals in Congressional Campaigns
2013. Under review. Prepared for presentation at the 2011 APSA meeting.
Although they agree that economics and elections are intertwined, theories of economic voting disagree on the policy focus (on positions taken or outcomes achieved) and time horizon (retrospective or prospective) that guides voters decisions. Most research on these debates looks at the considerations voters weigh. Instead, I explore the types of economic voting that candidates encourage through their campaign appeals. Content-coded advertising data from the 2004 congressional elections show that appeals generally tend to focus on policy positions and on the past or present. Consistent with predictions from emphasis allocation theory, strategic incentives and electoral context shape the exact mix of economic appeals campaigns make. In districts with high levels of formal education, where campaigns are positive, or where the incumbent is ideologically out of step, voters are exposed to communications emphasizing policy positions and the future more than policy outcomes and the past.
2012. Under review. [With Dannagal Goldthwaite Young and Paul R. Brewer]
This study examines how political satire affects perceptions of candidates’ viability and electability. It uses a novel field experiment to estimate the effects of The Daily Show’s coverage of the 2012 Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa on viewers’ perceptions of front- runner Mitt Romney. Participants exposed to host Jon Stewart’s commentary were more likely to regard Romney as having a strong chance of winning the nomination (relative to those who were not exposed to any news show) but less likely to see him as having a strong chance of winning the general election (relative to those who watched traditional news coverage). These results demonstrate the substantial impact political humor can exert on voter attitudes.
Does My Comment Count? Perceptions of Political Participation in an Online Environment
2011. Under review, earlier version presented at the 2010 APSA meeting. [With Lindsay H. Hoffman and Dannagal G. Young].
Since the infancy of the Internet, scholars have posited that the medium would bring about a great democratizing effect, mobilizing and engaging previously unengaged citizens. Yet the reality has proven more nuanced than is implied by a simple direct effects model. This paper examines citizens' motivations to engage in politics online, acknowledging that people are likely driven by a desire to influence government as well as a desire to communicate political ideas to others. We explore the ways in which these two behaviors—which we delineate as "participation" and "communication"—are perceived by citizens in online versus offline contexts. We also examine how such perceptions can predict certain behaviors, such as "friending" a candidate on a social networking site and messaging with friends online about politics. We find that these behaviors are indeed perceived differently among American citizens, and that these perceptions predict the likelihood of participating in online political forums.