Partisan Coalitions Research Articles

Four rounds in a row: The impact of presidential election outcomes on legislative elections in France

This article focuses on the consequences of presidential election outcomes on legislative election results in the context of the French semi-presidential regime. Through an analysis based on aggregated national- and constituency-level data, it shows that presidential elections do have an impact on legislative elections. Furthermore, this impact is proven to affect the balance between presidential majority and opposition coalitions and between core and fringe parties. The 2000 and 2002 reforms aligning presidential and National Assembly mandates and instituting a situation of repeated honeymoon elections significantly decrease the likelihood of any future period of cohabitation between a president and an Assembly from opposing partisan coalitions. They also foster presidentialization and explain the relative decrease in fragmentation within the party system.

Does congress realign or smoothly adjust? A discrete switching model of congressional partisan regimes

Studies of development and change in partisan fortunes in the US emphasize epochs of partisan stability, separated by critical events or turning points. In this paper we study partisan electoral changes in the US Congress using the method of Markov switching. Our estimates are based on election changes from 1854, roughly the date of the establishment of the modern incarnation of the two-party system, to the present. For the Senate, we estimate partisan balance both from 1856 and from 1914, the period of direct elections. Our discrete-state method performs better than one based on smooth cycles, and is more consistent with the existing theory. We use the Markov switching method to estimate an underlying unobserved state parameter, ‘partisan regime’. The method allows the direct estimation of critical transition points between Republican and Democratic partisan coalitions. Republican regimes characterized House elections during three periods: 1860 through 1872, 1894 through 1906, and 1918 through 1928. Senate results were roughly similar. Every recession caused a realignment prior to 1932, but since then none has. For the Senate, the two-state model does not fit adequately. We estimate a three-state model in which a Republican regime dominated from 1914 through 1928; a Democratic regime characterized the period 1930–1934, and a Democratic-leaning regime characterized the period 1938 to the present (1936 is a transition year). The driver for historical realignments up to 1930 seems to have been economic distress, at least for the House. Each recession before 1930 is associated with a realignment, but after 1930, no recession produced a realignment. Since then, however, economic downturns have not led to realignments. We speculate that better economic management since World War II, resulting in shallower recessions, is the cause. For the Senate, however, we detect only one fundamental regime shift: that during the Great Depression.

Pastorale americana

- American Pastoral deals with Barack Obama's victory: the victory of one model of political marketing which is in many ways characterized by networking and bottom-up mobilization. But does this constitute a realignment, that is a long lasting regime based on a new dominating partisan coalition? Does it inaugurate an epochmaking shift in power relations between different and opposing constituencies and social forces? Will the president be able to transfer to the White House the leadership he has consistently exerted over an extenuating campaign? Will such a leadership succeed in incorporating part of the anonymous popular voices that Obama's campaign newly won or won back to politics?Key words: Us, Obama, elezioni presidenziali.Parole chiave: Usa, Obama, presidential elections.

Who Gets What Now? Interest Groups under Obama

President Obama, like countless politicians before him, has pledged to cleanse Washington of the unseemly influence of interest groups on the policymaking process. His plan is to expand the scope of group participation and eliminate quid pro quo exchanges. Yet early signals indicate that he has brought the same previously prominent interest groups (both conservatives and liberals) into policy discussions over the stimulus bill, children's health insurance, health care reform, and entitlement control. Early policy changes also appear to offer substantial benefits to interest groups and constituencies associated with the Democratic Party.I argue that these patterns are typical and should be expected to continue. The involvement of various interest groups and constituencies in Washington policymaking is governed by their relative organizational mobilization, independent of ideology. Yet the extent to which party leaders heed their advice follows largely from their ties to partisan coalitions and their views. Despite campaign claims that interest group influence must be hindered before policy proposals can move forward, policy change comes much more easily to Washington than changes in the role of interest groups in the policymaking process.

The Red-Blue Divide on the Bench: An Examination of the Effects of Selection Systems on Partisan Divisions in State Supreme Court Decisions

This study explores at a very basic level how the partisan behavior of judges manifests itself on courts that use different judicial selection systems. Specifically, it examines how different reselection systems affect judges' propensity to form partisan coalitions in criminal cases, by looking at the voting habits of the justices on several state supreme courts over five years. The evidence indicates that partisan elections appear to promote the appearance of party line divisions, while systems that require judges to be reappointed have no effect on the incidence of party line votes. The evidence also indicates that although retention elections do not appear to have any significant effect on the incidence of party line votes, and that nonpartisan elections actually tend to decrease the incidence of party line votes.

Book Review: Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Book Review: Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Labor and Market Reforms

Louise Haag Citizenship, Labour Markets, and Democratisation: Chile and the Modern Sequence. London: Palgrave, 2002. Maria Victoria Murillo Labour Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Judith Teichman The Politics of Freeing Markets in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Book Review: Government and Industrial Relations: Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Book Review: Government and Industrial Relations: Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America

Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America. By Maria Victoria Murillo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 250p. $59.95 cloth, $21.95 paper.

In February of 1995, following the disastrous December 1994 devaluation of the Mexican peso, which sent incomes down temporarily by as much as 60% and threw more than a million laborers out of work, the nonagenarian labor leader Fidel Velasquez issued a curious statement. He declared that each Mexican worker (earning on average at that time about six dollars a day) should pledge one day's pay toward Mexico's external debt to show solidarity with Mexico's 24 ailing billionaires, some of whom were now merely several-hundred-millionaires. In a country where jokes are often the most telling form of popular political commentary, nobody knew whether to laugh or cry at doddering Velasquez's exhortation. After all, his long record as an advocate of painful wage caps and government downsizing suggested that he actually might be serious.

Labor unions, partisan coalitions, and market reforms in Latin America

Labor unions, partisan coalitions, and market reforms in Latin America

Partidos e Comissões no Presidencialismo de Coalizão

This article argues that the Brazilian President’s lawmaking powers, especially related to budget-making, crucially modify the incentives for more or less cooperative behavior among House members vis-a-vis their respective party representations in Congress, comparing the two democratic periods in Brazil: 1946-64 and post-1988. During the former period, given the President’s reduced agenda powers, Congress had greater freedom to define its approach to the President’s policy program without running the risk of retaliation in the form of lost patronage and budget resources. During the post-1988 period, since budget-making initiative is concentrated in the hands of the Executive Branch, the President’s bargaining power has expanded, requiring Congress to organize in more disciplined parties in order to more efficiently pressure the Administration to comply with agreements for mutual support. The study’s empirical section begins by identifying the pattern of coalitions that allowed for the developmentalist project in the 1950s as contrasted with the partisan coalition pattern that approved the constitutional reforms during the Cardoso Administration. The second section analyzes the parties’ policies towards the composition of crucial standing committees, demonstrating the impact of party loyalty on obtaining seats in the Committee on the Constitution and the Judiciary and the Committee on Finances and Taxation. The impact of party loyalty was significant in the former period and non-significant in the latter.

Moderating Backlash: Racial Mobilization, Partisan Coalitions, and Public Policy in the American States

AbstractIn general, state public policy responds positively to increased electoral participation among social groups. However, consistent with the racial threat hypothesis, this pattern appears to reverse itself for African Americans: as blacks turn out in greater proportions they actually incur decreasing policy responsiveness. Another research tradition suggests that political parties play a crucial mediating role between interests and government. Thus, African Americans may be able to counter this backlash effect by increasing their participation in the Democratic partisan coalition. Using a variety of pooled time series techniques, we demonstrate the general robustness of the racial backlash model but find that when African Americans increase their contribution to the Democratic coalition, state policy responds better to their interests. This result demonstrates the centrality of parties for democratic responsiveness.

Politics and Policy in the 103rd and 104th Congresses: Evaluating the Effects of Divided Government in the Postreform Era

In his systematic analysis of the significant legislation passed since 1946, Mayhew (1991) demonstrates that divided government may not, in fact, affect the amount of significant legislation enacted into law. In a recently published article, Krehbiel (1996) develops a formal model that makes such a prediction. Krehbiel argues that "unified government is neither necessary nor sufficient for gridlock to be broken." Such conclusions are at odds with the more conventional view of divided government, such as those of Sundquist (1988), Ripley (1983), and Key (1964). Does divided government affect the legislative process? If so, how? In this paper, we analyze the significant legislation passed during the 103rd and 104th Congresses. We find that the formation of partisan coalitions on final votes of passage occurs much more frequently during periods of unified government than during periods of divided government. We also provide indirect evidence that the legislation that was passed during unified government was more ideologically extreme than the legislation passed during divided government. We discuss the implications of these findings, particularly in light of earlier research done on the effects of divided government. Political scientists have long disagreed as to the relative influence that political

Minority rights, majority rule: partisanship and the development of Congress

Minority Rights, Majority Rule seeks to explain a phenomenon evident to most observers of the US Congress. In the House of Representatives, majority parties rule and minorities are seldom able to influence national policy making. In the Senate, minorities quite often call the shots, empowered by the filibuster to frustrate the majority. Why did the two chambers develop such distinctive legislative styles? Conventional wisdom suggests that differences in the size and workload of the House and Senate led the two chambers to develop very different rules of procedure. Sarah Binder offers an alternative, partisan theory to explain the creation and suppression of minority rights, showing that contests between partisan coalitions have throughout congressional history altered the distribution of procedural rights. Most importantly, new majorities inherit procedural choices made in the past. This institutional dynamic has fuelled the power of partisan majorities in the House but stopped them in their tracks in the Senate.

The President in a More Partisan Legislative Arena

This article updates our previous analysis of presidential success from 1953 to 1984 (Bond and Fleisher 1990) to see how increased partisanship in the House since 1985 has altered presidential-congressional relations. We ana lyze support from the four party factions in Congress (liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats, liberal Republicans, and conservative Republi cans) and the types of coalitions that formed on presidential votes in the House. The results present a mixed picture of how elevated partisanship altered the nature of presidential-congressional relations. We found an in crease in the tendency for partisan coalitions to form under recent minor ity presidents. This tendency, however, did not continue under unified government in the 103rd Congress. The analysis of presidential success rates under different coalitional structures provides more evidence that increased partisanship has altered presidential-congressional relations. Reagan in his second term and Bush lost more often than previous minor ity presidents when partisan coalitions formed. In contrast, Clinton won more party votes than previous majority presidents. Although the litera ture leads us to expect minority presidents to be more successful with ideological and bipartisan coalitions, we find that Reagan and Bush lost more often than previous minority presidents when the House divided on the basis of ideology or when the party bases acted in a bipartisan fashion.

National Grange Influence on the Supreme Court Confirmation of Stanley Matthews

Studies of the Supreme Court confirmation process have traditionally concentrated on factors that lead to Senate defeat of nominees (e.g., Scigliano 1971; Songer 1979; Palmer 1983; Segal 1987; Cameron et al. 1990; Ruckman 1993; Van Winkle 1994). Thus, they look at such institutional and political variables as presidential strength, timing, the partisan composition of the Senate, and whether an appointment may alter partisan coalitions on the Court. More recently, a separate body of literature has begun to examine the effects of interest-group lobbying for and against Supreme Court nominees (e.g., Caldeira 1988-89; Caldeira and Wright 1990,1991; Austen-Smith and Wright 1994). For example, Austen-Smith and Wright characterize the allocation of lobbying resources across senators supporting, opposing, and indifferent to Robert Bork's 1987 nomination. Our study, which examines the lobbying against the 1881 nominations of Stanley Matthews, is part of this second wave of research on group lobbying and Supreme Court nominations. We argue that National Grange influence affected senators' votes on Matthews's nomination during a period not associated with interest-group activity.

Electoral Strength and the Emergence of Group Influence in the Late 1800s

In this article, the author uses probit models to test the hypothesis that the strength at the state level of a Union veterans group was correlated to legislators'votes on proposals to extend pension benefits. Results indicate that the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the veterans group in question, affected legislators' votes on both the Arrears Act of 1879 and the Disability Pension Act of 1890. The GAR was one of the first broadly based groups able to provide voters with an alternative, group-based linkage to their legislators. Within Congress, parties were surprisingly unorganized, allowing the GAR to strengthen its independence from strictly partisan coalitions. The author draws parallels between results here and results from other scholars' analyses of more recent group activity.

Macroeconomics, Economic Stratification, and Partisanship: A Longitudinal Analysis of Contingent Shifts in Political Identification

This study examines the effects of unemployment and inflation on aggregate party identification since 1953. Distributive explanations emphasizing partisan preferences about macroeconomic outcomes and their effects on different income groups are gauged by letting the explanatory variables have dissimilar effects when different parties hold office. Independents are included so multinominal logit can be used to trace movements between all three identification choices. When a Democrat is president, increased unemployment heightens Democratic identification but inflation has no effects. When a Republican is president, increased unemployment and inflation reduce Republican identification. These results reveal historically contingent relationships between macroeconomic outcomes and partisan coalitions.