National Tides Research Articles

The Pseudoparadox of Partisan Mapmaking and Congressional Competition

AbstractWhy are fewer congressional elections competitive at the district level when the national electoral environment is at its most competitive? This article explores this “pseudoparadox,” and argues that the answer can be found in partisan redistricting. Through an analysis of 40 years of congressional elections, I find that partisan gerrymanders induce greater competitiveness as national tides increase, largely due to unanticipated consequences of waves adverse to the map-drawing party, particularly in seats held by that party. The phenomenon anecdotally coined by Grofman and Brunell as the “dummymander” is thus actually quite common and has significant effects on rates of congressional competition nationally. In contrast, bipartisan maps are shown to induce lower competition, while nonpartisan maps induce higher competition, under all electoral conditions and competitiveness measures. But the effects of partisan gerrymanders on competition, though strong, can only be seen in interaction with short-term national forces.

The electoral impact of grassroots activity in the 2012 local elections in Flanders

Does grassroots party activity win parties votes? The effect of party organization on performance is one of the most enduring debates about political parties. The conventional wisdom regarding the growing irrelevance of grassroots activity in the age of television has been increasingly challenged by studies of constituency parties’ efforts to mobilize likely supporters on election day. Few studies, however, have looked at the electoral impact of grassroots activity outside plurality systems. In particular, we present a most intriguing case study – one where voting is compulsory and parties’ efforts at mobilization likely superfluous. Using new and detailed data on grassroots party activity in Flanders, we demonstrate that grassroots activity has a positive and significant effect on parties’ vote share in the 2012 local elections, even after controlling for national tides and performance in the previous election. Alternative modelling strategies and operationalizations are testament to the robustness of these findings.

National Tides and Local Results in US House Elections

This article discusses whether candidates and campaigns in US House elections condition the influence of national political tides by magnifying their effects at the local level. Using election returns, it is shown that this interaction effect is quite small: a positive national tide increases votes for weak candidates almost as much as strong ones. However, competition and national tides in US House elections do interact to produce turnover: high-spending challengers rarely win without the help of a national tide. Contrary to many accounts in the American politics literature, it is also found that the tide's influence is weaker in open seats in certain important ways. Together, these findings suggest that US House candidates benefit from national tides but have a limited ability to create them, and that the prospects for national responsiveness are hurt by the trend towards heavier competition in open seats.

The Impact of National Tides and District-Level Effects on Electoral Outcomes: The U.S. Congressional Elections of 1862-63

We examine the U.S. Congressional elections of 1862-63, which resulted in a stunning setback for President Abraham Lincoln and the incumbent Republican Party. After the electoral dust had cleared, the Republicans lost control of the House, as their share of seats declined from 59 percent to just over 46 percent. While historians contend that the national electorate's general unhappiness with the war effort produced a largely systematic backlash against all Republican candidates, we explore the impact of both national tides and district-level effects on electoral outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that the emergence of quality challengers, district-specific war casualties, and the timing of the midterm elections in conjunction with changing national conditions influenced individual electoral fortunes. Our empirical analysis confirms each of these expectations. More generally, our results provide support for modern theories of electoral outcomes in a previously unexplored historical context and suggest several potential avenues for further research. W hile the economic, social, and military aspects of the American Civil War have been the focus of intensive research by historians and social scientists, the political aspects have not received the same careful attention. In particular, aside from some studies of the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864,1 little is known about general electoral politics during the war, both North and South. This article takes a small step toward filling that void by examining one particularly important political event, the U.S. Congressional elections of 1862-63, which would dramatically shape the political conduct of the war effort in the United States until the conclusion of hostilities.2 The midterm House elections were a disaster for President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans, as the party lost twenty-three seats and saw its majority status disappear: while the Republicans made up 59 percent of the 37th House, they would only comprise 46.2 percent of the 38th House

Preempting Quality Challengers in House Elections

Why do strong challengers oppose incumbents in some House districts and not in others? This paper compares the influence of several different strategic considerations which attract or dissuade good challengers: national political tides (Jacobson and Kernell, 1983), district level political forces (Bond et al., 1985), and preemptive spending by incumbents (Goldenberg et al., 1986). Examination of House races from 1972 to 1980 suggests that the local political climate plays the greatest role in determining the quality of a district's challenger, while the impact of national tides fluctuates, and preemptive spending has little effect. These findings shed light on the actions of House incumbents and the dynamics of congressional elections.

Explaining Challenger Quality in Congressional Elections

This study seeks to explain why some incumbents attract politically experienced, well-financed challengers while others do not. Using data from contested House races in 1980, we analyze the effects of four sets of variables including: (1) incumbents' policy and nonpolicy behavior (ideological discrepancy and use of perks for advertising and casework); (2) local partisan conditions (previous vote margin and the normal partisan vote in the district); (3) district diversity; and (4) the national tide. We find that both short-term and long-term partisan forces (previous vote and normal vote), national tides, and policymaking behavior (ideological discrepancy) significantly affect the probability of attracting politically experienced, well-financed challengers. District diversity and incumbents' use of perks available for advertising and casework, on the other hand, are not related to any indicator of challenger quality.

Turbulence in American Secondary Schools: What Reforms Last?

The education system of the United States includes 16,000 local education agencies, each with considerable power to determine its own curriculum. But this pluralistic, decentralized system also exhibits remarkable uniformity and consistency. This uniformity is due, in part, to the irresistible national tides of trends and movements for reform. After reviewing the cyclical history and current reform trends in the turbulent history of secondary curriculum in American schools, we have concluded that some reforms carried on these national waves anchor securely in the nation's high schools, but many others disappear like ships lost in a Bermuda Triangle of education. Our theory explains why some reforms last while others disappear and why still others vanish, but then reappear ephemerally in subsequent periods. Despite the recent intense criticism of the American secondary school and new efforts to reform it, we believe only marginal change rather than fundamental transformations will take place in the mid 1980s. While the research for this paper is primarily based in American experience, we have pointed out parallels between the findings of American research and the thrust of selected analyses of educational change in some European and other countries. Curriculum policy in American secondary education displays a striking mixture of stability and change. On the one hand, Cuban (1984) discovered that certain patterns of classroom instruction have endured for over fifty years. Among the lasting features are whole group instruction, the predominance of teacher talk, classroom dialogue in the questionand-answer textbook format, and the restriction of student movement * This article continues the series on Secondary Education under the special editorship of Mark Holmes.

Party and Incumbency in Postwar Senate Elections: Trends, Patterns, and Models

Senators who seek re-election usually achieve it. Yet it is not clear whether they tend to win mainly because they are incumbents or because their party is strong in their states. Thus, the two principal questions motivating this study are the following: (1) What is the relative importance of party and of incumbency in influencing the outcomes of Senate elections? (2) How has their relative importance changed over the last quarter-century? To answer these questions, a theory is developed accounting for the outcomes of Senate elections in terms of the major potential sources of electoral support given to the candidates, namely, party loyalty, incumbency, “national tides,” and idiosyncratic factors (e.g., issues, personality, local conditions). The theory is then represented in a formal model for which are generated multiple regression estimates of the respective roles of party and incumbency in all postwar Senate contests.The major finding is that the relative importance of party and incumbency has changed dramatically over the last quarter-century. Party has undergone an overall decline in influence, while incumbency has experienced a roughly proportionate increase. At the same time, the importance of idiosyncratic factors has grown. The implications of these results for broader theories of American politics, including the argument that the United States has been experiencing a “critical realignment,” are noted.