A Test of the Independent Influences of Electoral Competition and Party Strength in a Model of State Policy-Making

Abstract

Theory: Theories of party government suggest that party strength and electoral competition have unique and independent influences on policy-making. Hypotheses: District-level electoral competition leads to increased public policy liberalism; greater liberalism among the public leads to the enactment of more liberal public policies; more liberal legislatures enact more liberal public policies; and the percentage of Democrats in a state legislature is related significantly to policy adoptions. Methods: Erikson, Wright, and McIver's (1989) cross-sectional model of state policy liberalism is replicated on the original set of states, a smaller set of states, and with an additional variable added. Estimates are from an OLS routine in SPSS-Windows software. Results: The original results are replicated successfully. The measure of district-level electoral competition enters the model positively and significantly and adds to the variation explained. The results provide evidence for independent effects of electoral competition and legislative party strength on state policy-making.