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Most interpretations of ideal point estimates such as nominate scores treat the revealed space as an ideological space. This paper projects the ideal points of ideological pundits into the same estimated space and evidence that the space is jointly generated by ideology and some other force, orthogonal to ideology as it is defined by the pundits. This second force is most likely party, although it probably includes other forces as well. On the grounds that ideology may be in uencing party leaders to adopt its divisions, and that party and ideology are more correlated today than in the 1950's, this paper begins to disentangle which force was responsible for the increased association. Preliminary evidence suggests that ideology draws party toward itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a model of ideological formation that combines psychological predispositions and rational self-interest. I argue that by modeling the way in which political thinkers reason from first principles, and how they fail to ignore their own psychological and interest-based biases, we can explain ideological development. A model of long coalitions (Bawn 1999) provides a structure for people's interests and their psychological traits, and a model of reason (Rawls 2001) provides a method of combing those interests and traits into an ideology. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview:One determinant of the parties' ability to resist the median voter may be constituency size. We test this proposition with a measure of legislator ideology that is directly comparable to voter ideology, using referenda votes as bridging observations.Abstract:At the state and local level throughout the United States, there is considerable variation in the power of parties to control nominations, structure legislative voting, and compel non-median behavior from elected officials. Some of this variation stems from the range of institutional arrangements that govern parties. For example, more stringent rules on primary participation may result in the nomination of more extreme candidates (Fiorina 1974; Gerber and Morton 1998). Long periods out of power may also cause parties to unify while nominating more centrist candidates (Bawn et al 2006). Lee and Oppenheimer (1999) suggest a role for constituency size in determining partisanship. They find that senators from larger states tended to be policy activists, while those from smaller states tended toward more centrist behavior.In this paper, we investigate the role of constituency size in inducing party strength. Masket's (2007) study on this phenomenon was hampered by an important methodological barrier; any study that tries to determine whether legislators are more or less partisan than constituents must make very strong assumptions about the ideological scales of those two populations. Even if we accurately measure preferences with legislative votes and with electoral returns, the scales from both measures are arbitrary, and not the same.This is a common problem in the literature, to which we offer a possible solution. We propose to bridge the two populations using referenda, on which the legislature and the electorate both vote. They thus serve as bridging observations between the two distributions (e.g. Bailey 2007). We explore several critical features of this strategy. First, legislators can only vote yea or nay, but electoral districts can pass or fail a measure by any margin. We develop strategies for using that additional information without compromising the goal of comparability. Second, any further application of this strategy will suffer, since referenda are scarce. So we attempt to quantify the additional leverage gained by adding more bridging observations, and the dangers of having too few. This paper would be appropriate for panels on methodology, political parties, state politics, representation and nominations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies comparing the ideological leanings of voters and elected officials are often hampered by the lack of a common measure. We use legislative referenda - on which state legislators and voters both vote on the same issue - as a bridging observations to develop a common measure for both. Examining referenda votes during several sessions of the California Assembly, we find that legislators are significantly more ideologically extreme than the median voter in their districts. We additionally find that members of the majority party are considerably more extreme relative to their districts than members of the minority party are. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do Republicans and Democrats have the coalitions they have? I argue that ideological discussion brings issues into and out of alignment, and that the divisions we see in government are a reflection of coalitions shaped in the discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do parties create ideologies to rationalize their electoral coalitions? Or do ideologies shape parties, even against the re-election incentives of party leaders? In other words, how should we understand the relationship between ideology and party? These questions require a measure of ideology that is distinct from the partisan behavior of elected politicians. This paper develops such a model, coding the positions taken by intellectual thinkers around 1850. I find that ideological writers divided into two camps on slavery and on the other major issues of the day at a time when slavery cross-cut the two main camps in Congress. This division matches the one that develops in Congress a decade later, suggesting that the parties responded not just to electoral incentives, but also to this elite division. Ideology was accepted, even though it undermined longstanding attempts to hold together intersectional alliances and brought on a division that led to the Civil War. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]