scholarly journals The Constituency Service Basis of the Personal Vote for U.S. Representatives and British Members of Parliament

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce E. Cain ◽  
John A. Ferejohn ◽  
Morris P. Fiorina
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Administrative Assistants ◽  
American Research ◽  
Constituency Service ◽  
Service Basis

Under the guise of the “incumbency advantage,” American research of the past decade has devoted heavy emphasis to what may be termed the “personal vote” in congressional elections. Is this phenomenon purely American, or is it susceptible to comparative treatment? This article contrasts the personal vote in the 1980 U.S. House elections with that in the 1979 British general election. The analysis utilizes data from surveys conducted by the Center for Political Studies and British Gallup in combination with interviews of congressional administrative assistants (AAs) and British MPs and party agents whose constituencies fall in the sampling frames of the mass surveys. The analysis finds an incumbency advantage or personal vote in Britain which is much weaker than that in the United States but of somewhat greater importance than is commonly believed. As in the United States, constituency service appears to be an important component of the personal vote.

You’re Fired! Donald Trump and the 2020 Congressional Elections

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-650
Author(s):  
Jamie L. Carson ◽  
Spencer Hardin ◽  
Aaron A. Hitefield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
General Election ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Modern Era

Abstract The 2020 elections brought to an end one of the most divisive and historic campaigns in the modern era. Former Vice President Joe Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States with the largest number of votes ever cast in a presidential election, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump in the process. The record turnout was especially remarkable in light of the ongoing pandemic surrounding COVID-19 and the roughly 236,000 Americans who had died of the virus prior to the election. This article examines the electoral context of the 2020 elections focusing on elections in both the House and Senate. More specifically, this article examines the candidates, electoral conditions, trends, and outcomes in the primaries as well as the general election. In doing so, we provide a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the climate and outcome of the 2020 congressional elections. Finally, the article closes with a discussion of the broader implications of the election outcomes on both the incoming 117th Congress as well as the upcoming 2022 midterm election.

Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization Among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Sullivan ◽  
Pat Walsh ◽  
Michal Shamir ◽  
David G. Barnum ◽  
James L. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Members Of Parliament

In this article, we present data showing that national legislators are more tolerant than the public in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Two explanations for this phenomenon are presented and assessed. The first is the selective recruitment of Members of Parliament, Knesset and Congress from among those in the electorate whose demographic, ideological and personality characteristics predispose them to be tolerant. Although this process does operate in all four countries, it is insufficient to explain all of the differences in tolerance between elites and the public in at least three countries. The second explanation relies on a process of explicitly political socialization, leading to differences in tolerance between elites and their public that transcend individual-level, personal characteristics. Relying on our analysis of political tolerance among legislators in the four countries, we suggest how this process of political socialization may be operating.

19. Conclusion: Politics in the Age of Globalization

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand ◽  
Robert Garner ◽  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Political Studies

This concluding chapter summarizes some of the major themes and the threads of various arguments discussed throughout the book. It first emphasizes the complexity of the field and the ways in which political philosophy and the empirical study of politics are intertwined, arguing that the study of politics cannot be neatly separated from the study of other disciplines such as philosophy, law, economics, history, sociology, and psychology — and the fact that policy-making typically involves the natural sciences. The chapter proceeds by analysing how globalization influences political studies and highlights the limits of ‘methodological nationalism’ in political analysis. Finally, it considers Eurocentrism in the study of politics and contends that we cannot automatically assume the pre-eminence of Europe and the United States, or the West more generally, noting the apparent inevitability of the rise of other centres of power.

Ukranians in American East European Studies

1976 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Alexander Sydorenko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Studies ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Studies

Ukranian scholars in the United States pursue a broad range of disciplines, making significant contributions to such fields of inquiry as literature, linguistics, political studies, and economics. This paper will review the contributions to the study of Ukrainian history. It will examine some of the practical problems affecting the development of the Ukrainian historical studies in the United States and then review the work of a few selected scholars, whose research and publications typify the tenor and the direction of the Ukrainian historiography outside the Soviet Union.

Non-emergency exits : voluntary retirements from legislatures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Theodore J. Masthay
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Career Decisions ◽  
Institutional Arrangement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Data Set ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
The University

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Retirement is the main source of legislative turnover in the United States Congress. The incumbency advantage in congressional elections is so strong as to allow most members to decide to time their departure to align with their personal preferences. Much of the scholarly work on legislative retirements focuses on the House of Representatives. I identify this as a gap and extend this field of study to the Senate. I conclude that retirement decisions in the Senate do not mirror those in the House. Republicans retire at higher rates in the House of Representatives than their Democratic counterparts. There are several theories as to why this is the case, but the trend is an enduring one. Using a data set including every senator elected since the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which mandated their direct election, I compare Senate retirement patterns to those in the House. I find that the partisan effect seen in the House is essentially non-existent in the upper chamber. Instead, senators treat their time there as the natural end to their political career, usually eschewing the opportunity to seek higher office. However, this trend is relatively new, considering that before the middle of the 20th century electoral defeat was the most common way for senators to leave office. Finally, I extend my retirement analysis cross-institutionally to the European Parliament to further highlight the role of institutional arrangement on the career decisions of legislators.

Interpretations of the English Suprasegmentals

1959 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Robinson ◽  
D. F. Theall ◽  
J. W. Wevers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
American Research ◽  
Great Tradition

In a brief declaration in the last issue of this journal, our colleagues P. Drysdale, W. Mackey and M. Scargill outlined their objections to the Smith-Trager description of English stress, pitch and juncture. Their article calls into question the most fundamental American research works in English linguistics. At the outset, we would like to observe that in adopting attitudes towards the great tradition of linguistics in the United States, it is imperative that we avoid the two extremes of total belief and of rash rejection. This tradition is the product of several decades of intense, patient research by men with eminent ability to observe sounds and patterns, and an extraordinary flair for generating verifiable hypotheses. Thus the critic can condemn any part of the tradition only when he candemonstratethat it is false. On the other hand, the American tradition is empirical and positivist. It is evolving rapidly, and its conclusions and postulates are constantly being modified. Furthermore, it is not a monolithic tradition. Though there is a consensus of views at any given time, there are also hot debates, such as the current one on the interpretation of the English vowels and suprasegmentals. Thus anyone whobelievesthis year’s conclusions may soon find himself cherishing obsolete positions that their originators have long transcended.

Vietnamese Political Studies and Debates on Vietnamese Nationalism

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuong Vu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Deep Impact ◽  
Political Studies

This essay reviews the study of Vietnamese politics, specifically the debates about Vietnamese nationalism that have preoccupied scholars. The field has undergone two growth spurts——one in the mid 1960s and the other since the mid 1980s. These periods of growth were precipitated by Cold War politics and political developments in the United States and Vietnam, and the debates on Vietnamese nationalism evolved in a way that corresponded to trends in the field as a whole. When the field shifted, the tone of the debates and the major arguments advanced also shifted. Clearly, politics has had a deep impact not only on the development of the field but also on its scholarship.

The Unrealized Precedent of DAVIS V. BANDEMER

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Seabrook
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
The State ◽  
Congressional Districts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Legislative Districts ◽  
State Legislative

This chapter examines the involvement of the Supreme Court of the United States in litigation relating to partisan gerrymandering, paying particular attention to a case that attempted to apply the previously established Davis v. Bandemer precedent to congressional elections: Vieth v. Jubelirer. It begins with an overview of Badham v. Eu, which arose from the redrawing of California's congressional districts in the aftermath of the 1980 census and its most significant holding: that the Bandemer precedent, which had initially been applied to the drawing of state legislative districts only, also extends to the drawing of congressional districts. The chapter then considers the circumstances surrounding the Vieth case, in which the alleged political gerrymander concerned the reapportionment plan for the congressional districts in the state of Pennsylvania rather than those for the state assembly. It also analyzes the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Vieth, focusing on Justice Antonin Scalia's plurality opinion and Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurring opinion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document