Search

The 2016 presidential nominations revealed deep, yet distinct, divisions within each major party. These divisions persisted and permeated the general election campaign and were reflected in voters’ dissatisfaction with the candidates. Movements such as the “Bernie or Bust” supporters and the “Never-Trumpers” indicated that vocal portions of the parties were dissatisfied with the party nominees or the processes that selected those candidates. There were also indications that many party elites were not pleased with the nomination processes or the outcome; yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the extent to which party elites support the nomination process and their party’s nominee and what explains this support. By combining the 2016 Convention Delegate Study and an original dataset of the nomination electoral rules utilized by the states, we assess how candidate, partisan, and electoral factors shape delegate support for the nomination process and nominee. Our analysis reveals that candidate and party-centric explanations better explain delegate views toward the nomination process and nominee than factors related to the electoral context.

Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the first female presidential candidate to represent a major party in the 2016 US presidential election represented a key moment in US history. The focus on her gender during the campaign was intensified following the accusation by Republican Party nominee, Donald Trump, that Clinton was “playing the woman card”. The present article explores US media constructions of Clinton’s orientation to the topic of gender during the presidential campaign. Data were identified by searching the Lexis Advance® database between 4 February 2016 and 8 November 2016. Using a qualitative methodology guided by a Critical Discursive Psychology approach, we identify two discursive repertoires that were repeatedly mobilised in these media accounts: 1) a repertoire in which the principle of merit was used to undermine arguments for gender equality, and 2) a repertoire in which Clinton’s espoused version of feminism was undermined as ‘old-fashioned’. These repertoires functioned to de-legitimise Clinton as a political candidate by positioning her as seeking special treatment as a woman, who played the victim of sexism and was out of touch with the interests and concerns of female voters. We demonstrate how attempts to counter such characterisations can be problematic for female leaders.

This study presents a rhetorical analysis of the popular songs selected by the major party candidates for their campaigns during the U.S. presidential elections from 1972–2016. Our analysis reveals...

Feminism and anti-feminism featured prominently in the 2016 presidential election. Hillary Clinton was the first female major party presidential candidate and self-identified as a feminist speaking...

When, and under what circumstances, are congressional minority parties capable of influencing legislative outcomes? We argue that the capacity of the minority party to exert legislative influence is a function of three factors:constraintson the majority party, which createopportunitiesfor the minority party; minority partycohesionon the issue at hand; and sufficientmotivationfor the minority to engage in legislating rather than electioneering. Drawing on data on every bill considered in the House of Representatives between 1985 and 2006 and case examples of notable lawmaking efforts during the same period, we show that our theory helps predict which bills are considered on the House floor, which bills become law, and the substance of policy-making outcomes. Our findings have important implications for theories of congressional party power and our understanding of minority party influence on Capitol Hill.

While scholars posit an electoral link between congressional approval and majority party electoral fortunes, it is unclear whether citizens are grounding their assessments of approval on policy or valence grounds, such as retrospective economic evaluations. Whereas it is commonly understood that there is an ideological component to constituents’ job approval of their individual members of Congress, in addition to a strong partisan effect, the ideological basis of institutional approval has not been established. Using cross-sectional and panel survey data, which allow for scaling citizens and the congressional parties in the same ideological space, I demonstrate that, distinct from the partisan basis of congressional approval, citizens’ ideological distance from the majority party has a separate and distinct effect. These results suggest that the link between congressional approval and majority party fortunes is rooted in the collective ideological representation provided by the legislative majority in an increasingly responsible U.S. Congress.

When one political party gains control of American national governing institutions, it increases the prospects of enacting its policy agenda. Faced with this partisan misalignment, the authors expect state governments controlled by the national out-party to respond to the national partisan context with more state policy activism. The study examines changes in state policy liberalism from 1974 to 2019, and finds that both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states have pushed policy further in their preferred ideological directions when the opposing party has greater partisan control over the national policy agenda in Washington. It also identifies differences between the two parties. While the effect of Republican control modestly increases as Democrats gain power at the national level, Democratic-controlled states have shown dramatically larger shifts in policy liberalism during periods of Republican national control. This arrangement, however, appears to be a contemporary one, emerging in the more polarized political environment since the mid-1990s.

I study the allocation of spending, and the impact of politics on regional growth in Greece, using a large dataset that covers the period between 1959 and 2010. I find that electoral districts that vote for the majority party and are represented by majority MPs receive more spending from the central government, and grow faster. Districts do not seem to enjoy any additional benefits when their elected representatives also occupy positions in the executive branch of the government.

The majority party leadership has different goals for different committees. As such, they tailor a variety of control mechanisms to match different committees. When a committee is considered “highl...

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority party constitutes an organizational cartel that monopolizes the selection of chamber leaders. But in state legislatures, that cartel power is sometimes circumvented by a bipartisan bloc that outvotes the leadership preferences of a majority of the majority party. Drawing from an original data set of instances of cross-party organizational coalitions at the state level, I use statistical analysis to test various hypotheses for when these coalitions are more likely to form. The analysis reveals that party ideology does not adequately explain the violation of these cartels; rather, violations depend on the costs associated with keeping the party unified and the benefits that come from selecting the chamber’s top leadership post. This finding underscores the potential vulnerability of organizational cartels and suggests that governing parties are strategic when deciding how fiercely to defend their cartel power.

The article analyzes the institutional foundations of the emergence and functioning of the major party factions in Uruguay and their influence on maintaining the stability of the presidential regime. The Uruguayan parties are historically characterized by fragmentation and consist of many ideologically diverse movements, which allows us to view them as coalitions. The factions competing among themselves for the influence on the political agenda ultimately form the party’s common strategy. Coalition tendency within parties is largely determined by the peculiarities of the electoral system established in Uruguay. The elected president with a broad mandate, being a representative of his faction, must build coalition relations with other factions of his party, giving them various concessions in the executive branch. Based on the factors considered, the author concludes that the electoral characteristics of the Uruguayan political system create the necessity for coalitions among party factions, thus affecting the stability of presidential rule.

While US Congress assigns only the members of a majority party to committee chairs, some state legislatures and other legislative bodies using a proportional representation system also consider mem...

The United Kingdom political landscape has historically been dominated by the two main political parties: Labour and the Conservatives. However, by the 2010 General Election, their vote share had dropped to 65%. The 2010 election also saw a new development enter the UK political landscape—televised leaders’ debates, which featured the leaders of the three largest political parties. Discussions before the 2015 General Election resulted in a decision to repeat the debate experiment, but this time, partly due to changes in projected vote shares, seven leaders were invited to the main debate. Using content analysis of the debate, this research questions the presentation of the debate as a deliberative event. Participatory parity was not achieved in the debate—far from it. Instead, the debate served to reinforce extant power differentials between the leaders of parties of differing political standings.

The first presidential debate of 2016 was historic along a number of dimensions, including the first woman general election candidate and the first general election candidate in history with no political or military experience. Given the presence of the first woman nominee of a major party, along with dramatic gender differences in support for the candidates, we focus on the role of gender in shaping people’s emotional responses to candidate messaging during the debate. Through the use of a controlled experiment, we measure changes in attitudes after exposure to the debate. In addition, we utilize facial expression software to explore real-time reaction to the candidates during the debate. Leveraging data generated during the debate by the facial expression software and as well as responses to pretest and post-test questionnaires, we find that men and women respond differently to candidates’ messaging during the debate and these emotional responses influence post-debate evaluations.

Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party made fighting corruption as a major election plank, and won the 2014 elections, and formed the National Democratic Alliance government – a majority party government in India in nearly 30 years. Modi was re-elected in May 2019 with a bigger majority. As his government celebrates the second term, it is time to assess the last five years’ accomplishments in fighting corruption. This chapter deals with the subject under four major headings. The first examines the efficacy of existing anti-corruption agencies. The second explains the office of Lokpal (Ombudsman). The third analyses the initial challenges and efforts of the Modi government. The fourth draws some conclusions.

The massive differences between the findings of “Majority Party” and the findings of earlier SRC studies are only due to changes in the American electorate; they reflect changes in the models, methods and standards by which voters are assessed. Elections are by their nature collective enterprises; both the outcome of the election and the subsequent performance of the government are collective goods for the entire electorate. An instrumental voter applies information relevant to the choice between alternatives, i.e., information which bears upon the expected returns to the voter of the election of particular candidates. The accumulation of information involves the expenditure of resources, if only the time required for its procurement, analysis and evaluation. “Majority Party” bases its findings of heightened issue orientation upon very different standards. As noted above, in the 1972 questionnaire format, voters were allowed to express general preferences rather than precise policy choices on particular items of legislation.

This chapter aims to elucidate how different factors affect legislative unity in U.S. Congress and why the presidents in the period of unified government face intraparty divergences or even defections. Party majority in Congress does not assure the president to get all of his preferred bills passed. Some members of the president’s party have their own will and can choose not to toe the party line. Party leaders of the majority party can face cross-pressures from the president and party members. The cost of opposing the president can be more minimal than the cost of losing support of the party members.

Scholars regard the proliferation of omnibus legislative packages as an important institutional change with various implications for democratic governance. After first considering the reasons why omnibus packages are employed in the U.S. Congress and the best way to measure omnibus legislating, this paper examines the aggregate trends in omnibus usage from 1948–2018 and the effect of omnibus usage on presidential-congressional relations. The trend data show an explosion of omnibus use in the U.S. national legislature from 1979–1996, followed by a contraction in omnibus use since that time. However, large bill usage continues and is especially robust around the annual budget reconciliation bill in Congress and there is a persistent incentive to use the technique to package many of the 12–14 U.S. appropriations bills together in larger measures. Unlike the apparent trend in other democratic systems, wherein the executive benefits disproportionately from omnibus usage to the detriment of the legislature, omnibus bills by and large benefit Congress more than the president. Within Congress, majority party members benefit more from their use than do minority party members. The discussion section explores the good and bad of the omnibus technique for American governance.

Under unified conditions, some presidents have had a more fragile basis from which to set the agenda and pursue their own independent policy proposals. In our cases, two semi-presidential countries, Taiwan and France demonstrate party disunity or incoherence in the period of unified government. Institutional features such as confidence vote, electoral system, candidate nomination, and decree power contribute to various degrees of party disunity. Mexico and U.S. illustrate moderate levels of majority party support. Some legislators would choose to be out of step with the majority party in exchange for currying voter support in their districts.

This paper presents the results from a national survey experiment that tests how voters respond to alternative voting rules, like ranked choice voting (RCV). There are competing predictions about how voters will evaluate alternative voting rules. Since RCV allows people to mark preferences for multiple candidates, rather than just choosing one, some voting theorists contend that these systems allow for a fuller expression of voter preferences. The ability to have one’s vote transfer to a second or third choice candidate is a major selling point of RCV. However, there is little direct evidence indicating whether American voters really like this feature. We find that a short explanation of the vote transfer properties of RCV does not increase public support for the voting rule. Respondents give the single vote method higher ratings on fairness and ease-of-use measures, and a strong majority prefers the single vote to the ranked vote. Younger voters, Democrats, more educated respondents, and third-party supporters tend to evaluate RCV more positively than older voters, Republicans, less educated respondents, and major party supporters. Jurisdictions adopting ranked choice voting will need sustained voter education campaigns to overcome initial public resistance to new voting rules.

In this paper, we examine the implications of the party cartel model of congressional policy making on the level of redistributional social welfare spending in the United States. The party cartel model predicts an inverse relationship between the level of spending on social welfare programs and median family income of the district that the median member of the majority party represents. Specifically, the higher the median district income of the median member of the majority party, the smaller the amount of social welfare spending Congress will allocate. To test this hypothesis, we estimate a random coefficients model using time series cross sectional data on congressional Budget Authorization for redistributional social welfare spending. We find that for each $1000 increase in median district income for the median member of the majority party, each redistributional Budget Authority sub-function decreases by an average of $489 million (for a total decrease of $3.91 billion overall). Therefore, the party cartel model appears to be a significant predictor of the level of income redistribution in the U.S.