Research

Publications

Giving Order to Districts: Estimating Voter Distributions with National Election Returns
forthcoming in Political Analysis

Correctly measuring district preferences is crucial for empirical research on legislative responsiveness and voting behavior. This article argues that the common practice of using presidential vote shares to measure congressional district ideology systematically produces incorrect estimates. I propose an alternative method that employs multiple election returns to estimate voters' ideological distributions within districts. I develop two estimation procedures -- a least squared error model and a Bayesian model -- and test each with simulations and empirical applications. The models are shown to outperform vote shares, and they are validated with direct measures of voter ideology and out of sample election predictions. Beyond estimating district ideology, these models provide valuable information on constituency heterogeneity, an important but understudied quality for understanding representatives' strategic behavior.

“Institutional Context, Cognitive Resources and Party Attachments Across Democracies” (with John D. Huber and Eduardo L. Leoni)

Political Analysis 13(4): Autumn 2005, 365-386.

This paper develops and tests arguments about how national-level social and institutional factors shape the propensity of individuals to form attachments to political parties. Our tests employ a two-step estimation procedure that has attractive properties when there is a binary dependent variable in the first stage and when the number of second-level units is relatively small. We find that voters are most likely to form party attachments when group identities are salient and complimentary. We also find that institutions that assist voters in retrospectively evaluating parties—specifically, strong party discipline and few parties in government—increase partisanship. These institutions matter most for those individuals with the fewest cognitive resources, measured here by education.

Dissertation/ Book Project

Political Party Organizations and Representation: Party Responsiveness, Candidate Heterogeneity and Voter Behavior in Mature Parliamentary Systems (dissertation)

Ch.5. The Effect of Party Consistency on Partisanship

In this chapter, I examine the effect of party heterogeneity on vote choice through a simple model of voter decision making. I argue that heterogeneity will increase a party's chances of receiving an individual's vote if that individual is ideologically dissimilar to the party, but will decrease a party's performance among voters with whom it takes similar stances. I test the argument with a multilevel model that controls for the conditional relationship of party heterogeneity and party-voter congruence. I find support for the hypotheses: heterogeneity is an asset for parties among voters who are ideologically distant, but a liability among voters whose policy views are near those of the party.

Ch. 7. Party Decentralization and Participation

Chapter 5 examines a different aspect of individual-level behavior: participation in electoral campaigns. I argue that individuals will be less likely to participate for parties that are decentralized because those parties divide supporters with internal party competition and factional conflict. This hypothesis draws on arguments about “divided primaries" in American politics. I test the hypotheses by isolating voter behavior, and find that voters are less likely to campaign for parties that are decentralized than parties that are centralized.

Party Organization Data Base Codebook

My dissertation chapters (see Ch. 5 for example) and Political Analysis paper (see below) employ multi-level and two-stage modeling approaches.

Working Papers

Party Experience, Consistency and Partisanship

Electoral consistency and longevity are critical ingredients in citizens' appraisals of political parties. Both qualities may be virtues in the abstract, but whether a voter responds favorably to the former will depend on how closely consistent appeals match his or her political views. Drawing on a model of partisan updating developed by Achen (1992), I derive hypotheses which are then tested using survey data for 66 political parties in 20 mature parliamentary democracies. I argue that party inconsistency (both over time and across regions) should increases the probability of identifying with or voting for a party for individuals who are ideologically distant from that party, but that inconsistency decreases partisanship and vote share for individuals who are close. Party experience in elections and in government should increase partisanship, but have no independent effect on vote share. The results support the hypotheses, suggesting that party appeals in election campaigns are an important factor in informingcitizens' appraisals of political parties. (This paper is based on Chapters 5 and 6 from my dissertation.)

Institutionalized Diversity and Representation

Retrospection and Rational Expectations as Alternative Information Strategies
(with Samuel Kernell)

Are people more likely to base their predictions for the economy on retrospective evaluations or prospective information? A case for the former emphasizes the high (arguably, prohibitive) costs of prospective information; an argument for the latter asserts simply that rational expectations agents will consume that information which provides them with the most accurate forecasts. Rather than contrasting retrospective with prospective as mutually exclusive information strategies, we test whether individuals will shift consumption from one form of economic assessment to the other according to the uncertainty and variability of the relevant environment. The literature acknowledges the likelihood of variation in individuals' reliance on these alternative decision rules: more resourceful individuals (i.e. those with higher education or income) are more likely to seek prospective information than will their less endowed counterparts. In addition, this project allows for the value and costs of prospective information to vary across individuals and over time. Specifically, we hypothesize that there are three sources of variation in the informational environment. First, when the economy is uncertain (volatile and/or deteriorating), individuals will find current indicators to be less reliable than when experience has shown that present conditions closely track past experiences. Second, shocks to the economy (eg. OPEC and 9/11) will sharply erode the perceived value of retrospective information, prompting individuals to consume prospective information. Third, election campaigns may flood the environment with prospective information. This lowers consumption costs, prompting marginally inattentive individuals to behave more as rational expectations agents.

To test these hypotheses, the analysis examines survey respondents' reported consumption of economic news and their corresponding expectations for business conditions. The data consist of a rolling, two-wave panel of approximately
150,000 survey respondents interviewed at six-month intervals as part of the monthly Survey of Consumers from 1979 to 2006. We employ multilevel modeling to examine temporal and individual effects on economic predictions.

If you would like any more information about my research please email me.