Elections, Responsibility and the Rise of Congressional Polarization by John Arthur Henderson A ...

223 Pages·2013·2.34 MB·English

UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Downs' Revenge: Elections, Responsibility and the Rise of Congressional Polarization
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2457g1p0
Author
Henderson, John Arthur
Publication Date
2013

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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Downs’ Revenge: Elections, Responsibility and the Rise of Congressional
Polarization
by
John Arthur Henderson
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Political Science
in the
Graduate Division
of the
University of California, Berkeley
Committee in charge:
Professor Eric Schickler, Co-chair
Professor Jasjeet S. Sekhon, Co-chair
Professor Gabriel S. Lenz
Professor Robert J. MacCoun
Professor Robert P. Van Houweling
Fall 2013
Downs’ Revenge: Elections, Responsibility and the Rise of Congressional
Polarization
Copyright 2013
by
John Arthur Henderson
1
Abstract
Downs’ Revenge: Elections, Responsibility and the Rise of Congressional Polarization
by
John Arthur Henderson
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
Professor Eric Schickler, Co-chair
Professor Jasjeet S. Sekhon, Co-chair
Over the last forty years, Members of Congress (MCs) have grown increasingly polarized
in their legislative behavior, while representing electorates that are much more moderate in
their policy views. This lack of anchoring by median preferences highlights a central puzzle
in American politics: How do polarized candidates run and win elections based on legislative
records that are increasingly ‘out of step’ with their districts and states?
Existing research points to two potential electoral sources for this representation dis-
connect. A predominant view is that this polarization process is the result of a changing
balance of electoral forces that favor the demands of partisan and ideological voters over
those expressed by centrists. The growing importance of primary elections, campaign cash,
and clarified party brands, for example, may all create incentives for candidates to tack to
the extremes as a precursor to successfully running in the general election. Alternatively,
this dissertation argues that polarization is being driven, at least in part, through legislative
‘shirking’ by policy-motivated MCs who aim to pass their preferred policies while securing
electoral insulation through communication effort in the campaign.
To address these competing accounts, this dissertation examines over forty years of cam-
paign advertising to examine how candidates discuss their legislative records during elections
and whether these campaign communications influence the way voters decide. In doing so,
the project collects and analyzes 12,692 television commercials from House and Senate races
between 1968 and 2008 in the Congressional Ads Project (CAP), the largest dataset ever
assembled on campaign advertising in U.S. elections. The CAP dataset offers the first-ever
glimpse into the political communication strategies developed by House and Senate candi-
dates over multiple decades, including measures of the issues, positions, character appeals,
partisanship, and other information candidates present to voters in the campaign. In ad-
2
dition to these data, the CAP data includes the transcribed positions taken by candidates
across a number of issues in each of their ads. Finally, the project also examines additional
survey, election, and campaign data, including ads from the 2008 election linked to the vote
choices and attitudes of voters in order to evaluate position taking in more recent campaigns.
In analyzing this new dataset, this dissertation finds that candidates are increasingly dis-
cussing issues in their campaign advertisements. This increase is especially stark relative to
the decline evident in candidate efforts to communicate their characteristics, seniority, lead-
ershiporotherpersonalqualificationsforoffice. Additionally, indiscussingissues, candidates
are also increasingly portraying themselves as moderates on policy, while characterizing their
opponents as extremists through a process of issue distancing. In this process, candidates
use issue-based strategies to confuse voters over which of the two competing candidates is
most extreme by tacking to the center in elections, potentially providing an electoral boost
to advantaged candidates and incumbents on non-policy grounds.
Further, this dissertation develops and implements a research design that exploits the
disjuncture between media markets and electoral jurisdictions to identify the causal effects
of position taking in campaign advertising. Due to the way markets are designed, candidates
cannot efficiently target all voters in their districts and states, thus some ad messages are
‘wasted’ on certain voters. The design uses this inefficiency to draw comparisons across
otherwise similar voters exposed to different kinds of issue positions. In doing so, this
dissertation finds consistent evidence that distancing in the campaign helps candidates win
votes, and can help mitigate the fallout from their polarized records.
Overall, this project provides additional support for the elite-driven account of a repre-
sentational disconnect in American politics, suggesting fundamental limits to the ability of
voters to hold their representatives accountable in contemporary elections. Moreover, the
process of issue distancing may be an additional mechanism that can help sustain polar-
ization in Congress in spite of the growing dissatisfaction of voters, and concerns over the
well-functioning of America’s majoritarian and divided powers system colliding with strong
and (ir)responsible parties.
i
To my parents, Vincent and Sherry Henderson, for the many sacrifices they made so we
could reach unimaginable heights, and to Kim, whose friendship and wisdom keeps me ever
grounded.
ii
Contents
Contents ii
List of Figures iv
List of Tables vi
1 Issue Distancing in Congressional Elections 1
1.1 A Growing Disconnect in Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 The Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Linking Campaign Strategy to Congressional Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Implications for Representation and Responsible Party Government . . . . . 9
1.5 Congressional Ads Project, 1968 – 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.6 Overview of Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2 Polarization and the Representation Disconnect 14
2.1 Spatial Voting and Election Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2 Evidence of a Representation Disconnect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Electoral Accounts for Polarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.4 Policy Motivations, Shirking and the Limits of Electoral Constraint . . . . . 45
2.5 Why Polarize If There is a Cost? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3 Representational Style in the Changing Campaign 49
3.1 Issue Avoidance in Congressional Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2 Changing Presentation of Representational Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.3 Issue Agendas in Congressional Elections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.4 Faithful Advocates of Their Party Agendas? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4 Evidence of Issue Distancing from Campaign Ads 77
4.1 Towards a Theory of Issue Distancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.2 Assessing Position-Taking in Congressional Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.3 Evidence of Issue Distancing in Polarized Elections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.4 A Closer Look at the 2008 Election . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.5 Valence, Values and Tradeoffs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
iii
5 Effects of Distancing on Election Outcomes 109
5.1 Difficulty in Studying Ad Effects with Observational Data . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.2 Identifying Campaign Effects Through Overlapping Media Markets . . . . . 114
5.3 Hierarchical Matching for Non-Binary Dose Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.4 Data and Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.5 Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.6 Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6 Conclusion 137
6.1 Implications for Representation In An Era of Polarized Parties . . . . . . . . 139
Bibliography 145
A Congressional Ads Project: Sampling Frame 164
B Congressional Ads Project: Rubric for Coding 169
C Validity and Assumptions of the Scaling Methods 201
D Additional Tables and Figures 205
iv
List of Figures
2.1 Rise of Party Unity Voting on Roll Calls: 1970 to 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 Polarization in Average Nominate Scores, by Chamber: 1945 to 2009 . . . . . 20
2.3 Polarization in Average Cosponsorship Ideal Points, by Chamber: 1974 to 2008 23
2.4 Modest Increase in Partisan Cosponsorship Coalitions: 1974 to 2008 . . . . . . . 24
2.5 Receding Center in the House: 1968 to 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.6 Extreme Responses on Nine Issue Items in the ANES, All Respondents: 1970 to
2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.7 Extreme Responses on Nine Issue Items in the ANES, Just Voters: 1970 to 2008 30
2.8 Extremity in Self-Placement of Party ID and Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.9 Correspondence Between Increasing Strength of PID and Self-Placement Extremity 33
2.10 Low Polarization and High Overlap in Mass Opinion of Partisan Identifiers: 1980
and 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.11 Change in Presidential Vote by Party-Controlled Districts and State . . . . . . . 35
2.12 Density of Presidential Vote and MCs in Districts and States: 1980s and 2000s . 37
3.1 Increasing Issue Focus in Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.2 Increasing Specificity of Issue Positions in Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3 Increasing Average Number of Issue Positions in Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4 Changing References to Representation Activities by Type . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.5 Changing Importance of Character in Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.6 Decline in References to Experience and Values in Ads by Party . . . . . . . . . 63
3.7 Decline in References to Service or Pork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.8 Gallup Measures of Congressional Approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.9 Changing Nature of Candidate Evaluations in the ANES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.10 Party Dominance of Issues in Congressional Ads Project Data, 1968 – 2000 . . . 72
4.1 Graphical Model of sLDA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.2 Nine Topic Model of the 106th House Using sLDA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.3 Relative Extremity of Scaled Cosponsorship Ideal Points Compared to Modera-
tion in Campaign Promotion Statements for House Incumbents in the 1980s and
2000s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
v
4.4 PositiveIssueDistancinginPromotionAdsComparedtoCosponsorshipPositions
for House Incumbents, 1974 - 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.5 Extremity of Both Scaled Cosponsorship Ideal Points and Campaign Attack
Statements for House Incumbents in the 1980s and 2000s . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.6 Minimal Issue Distancing in Attack Ads Compared to Cosponsorship Positions
for House Incumbents, 1974 - 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.7 Polarization in Attack and Promotion Ads Compared to Cosponsorship Positions 98
4.8 Polarization in Party Focus on Topics in Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.9 Effects of Hypothetical Positions on Election Oucomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.10 District Plots of Incumbent and Challenger Promotion Ads: 2008 . . . . . . . . 104
4.11 District Plots of Incumbent and Challenger Attack Ads: 2008 . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.1 Correlation Between Candidate Promotion Messages and Media Market or Polit-
ical Jurisdiction Policy Conservatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.2 QQ-PlotsofFourPoliticalMeasuresAcrossLiberalandConservativeMediaMar-
kets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
C.1 Modeling Only Ads and Only Titles to Predict Cosponsorship Bill Locations in
the 104th House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
C.2 Correlation Between Scaling Bills Using sLDA on Titles and IRT on Cosponsor-
ship Choices: 106th House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
C.3 CorrelationBetweenScalingBillsandAdsUsingsLDAandaBivariateRegression
Approach: 106th House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
D.1 Polarization in House Roll Call and Cosponsorship Behavior, By Party: 1945 to
2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
D.2 Polarization in Issue Agendas By Topic Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
D.3 Partisan and Bipartisan Issue Agendas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
D.4 Correlation Between Candidate Promotion Messages and Media Market or Polit-
ical Jurisdiction Republican Presidential Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209