Browsing by Author "Carroll, Royce A."
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Item Conditioning Descriptive Representation: Institutional Moderation of Unique Group Perspectives in Legislative Debates(2013-07-30) Eichorst, Jason; Martin, Lanny W.; Carroll, Royce A.; Jones, Mark P.; Soligo, RonaldIncorporating legislators from historically underrepresented groups into the legislature should be associated with the introduction of new perspectives to the legislative process. Achieving an ideal form of political representation is not so simple. The institutional structure of the political system shapes legislative choices and defines the process of political representation. Structured legislative choices can have moderating effects on the presence of unique perspectives during the policymaking process. This means that the incorporation of historically underrepresented groups is not always sufficient for group representation. I develop a contextual theory of political representation that isolates when we should-and should not-observe unique patterns of political representation. I argue that ballot type and party affiliation are two distinct factors that shape legislative choices and define to whom legislators are accountable. The theoretical argument synthesizes previous literature on gender and ethnic descriptive representation to develop an integrated theory of political representation. It leverages the uniqueness of group identity and cross-cutting factors to isolate where descriptive representatives should express unique patterns of political representation and the extent to which the political context conditions the legislative behavior of descriptive representatives. I develop a new measure of political representation using automated content analysis of legislative debates to empirically explore patterns in speech communication across different types of descriptive representatives. This measure makes it possible to empirically determine the strength of the divide that separates types of descriptive representatives. Unique perspectives should be apparent in the way legislators frame the justification and explanation of public policy to those who hold them accountable. This helps us identify the extent to which incorporating legislators from historically underrepresented groups has an influence on a broadly-defined set of issues. Bolivia provides a unique opportunity to explore patterns of representation. Indigenous and female descriptive representatives have been historically underrepresented in Bolivia and possess interests that are relatively uncrystallized in the legislative assembly. The historical absence of these interests in the legislative assembly leaves a void in group representation. Indigenous legislators are expected to possess broadly-defined unique perspectives associated with group identity. Party affiliation, however, should structure the primary dimension of conflict for Indigenous representatives, whose interests overlap with partisan affiliation. Unique group perspectives should be observed within party. Female representation is different. The nature of cross-cutting factors should suppress the uniqueness of female perspectives within party, but unique collective perspectives should be obvious between parties. Overall the empirical evidence supports theoretical expectations. Indigenous representation is structured by party when explored at the chamber-level. The most distinct patterns of Indigenous representation are within party. These differences are moderated when we explore the strength of the divide for those legislators elected on party lists compared to those elected in plurality districts. The most distinct speech patterns of female representation are at the chamber-level. Cross-cutting interests make it possible for women to speak with a collective voice. Unlike Indigenous representation, distinct patterns of female representation are moderated within party, where there is broader agreement on partisan issues among copartisans. I interpret these results as preliminary support for a theoretical argument that simultaneously explains ethnic and female descriptive representation. Understanding when interests intersect and isolating the uniqueness of those interests can help us strengthen our broader understanding of gender and ethnic representation. We need to know where to look and how to find these unique patterns of political representation. Plenary debates provide an opportunity for different types of descriptive representatives to frame messages in order to simultaneously strengthen a collective partisan and individual reputation. This is particularly valuable in systems where political parties are unified. This project finds that the political context does indeed condition the behavior of descriptive representatives and moderate observed legislative behavior. Unique patterns of representation of historically underrepresented groups, fortunately, do exist under favorable conditions and fill a void of representation that satisfies normative values of democracy.Item Dimensions of Politics: How Institutions Shape East. Asian Legislatures(2014-04-22) Jang, Jinhyeok; Jones, Mark P.; Martin, Lanny; Carroll, Royce A.; Lewis, Steven W.This dissertation project explores how institutions have shaped dimensional structure in East Asian legislatures, including Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan in the past two decades. The major issues dividing the left and right in East Asia are not about economic in nature, but rather structured by legislators' preferences vis-\`a-vis democratization and the relationship with Beijing in Hong Kong, the geo-security issue in South Korea, and the Taiwanese or Chinese identity issue in Taiwan. This dissertation provides either the first or some of the very first empirical evidence of the dimensional structure of the three East Asian politics. By drawing from the literature on political parties, electoral laws, and legislative agenda dynamics, my dissertation also explains how legislators facing different institutional incentives align differently either with or against the main political cleavage.Item Essays on Voter and Legislative Behavior in Coalitional Democracies(2012-09-05) Fortunato, David; Martin, Lanny W.; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Carroll, Royce A.; Sickles, RobinIn this dissertation I examine the reciprocal relationship between voters and political parties in coalitional democracies in three essays. First, I investigate how voters alter their perceptions of political parties in response to their participation in coalition cabinets. I argue that voters view coalition participation as broad and wide-ranging policy compromise and update their perceptions of the policy positions of cabinet participants accordingly. I find that voters perceive coalition partners as more similar than parties that are not currently coalesced, all else equal. In the following essay, I examine the electoral repercussions of this shift in perceptions by proposing a model of voting that considers coalition policy-making. I argue that voters will equate the policy compromise they perceive in the cabinet with a failure to rigorously pursue the policies they were promised and that voters who perceive compromise will punish the incumbent. The data reveals that this perception may cost incumbent cabinets about 2.5% of their vote share. Finally, I move from the electorate to the legislature to investigate if and how these perceptions condition legislative behavior. The previous essays suggest that coalition parties have substantial motivation to differentiate themselves from their partners in cabinet when voters perceive them as becoming more similar. I test this argument by examining partisan behavior in legislative review. The data show that coalition partners who are perceived as more similar are more likely to amend one another’s legislation.Item Gender Quotas and The Representation of Women: Empowerment, Decision-making, and Public Policy(2012-09-05) Barnes, Tiffany; Jones, Mark P.; Carroll, Royce A.; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Heffes, GiselaOver the past two decades governments worldwide have begun to take action to correct gender disparity in representative bodies, resulting in drastic increases in women’s numeric representation. It is unclear, however, how these increases influence legislative behavior. This research contributes to our understanding of how increases in women’s numeric representation influences substantive representation of women. I collected an original dataset to examine this relationship across twenty-three subnational Argentine legislatures over eighteen years. This project represents one of the first empirical efforts to examine women’s substantive representation over a large number of legislatures over a long duration of time. A key piece of the puzzle is to understand if female exhibit distinct preferences from their male colleagues. The second chapter of the dissertation uses a new data set of ideal point estimates recovered from cosponsorship data to examine gender differences in legislative preferences. I find strong evidence to suggest women display different legislative preferences than their male colleagues. Chapter three investigates how increases in women’s numeric representation influence women’s legislative behavior. Previous research suggests that increasing women’s numeric representation should enhance the probability that women work together to pursue common legislative agendas. Yet, I demonstrate that as the percentage of women in the chamber increases, women are increasingly less likely to work together. I argue that this unexpected finding can be explained by considering how institutions shape women’s legislative incentives. In chapter four, I develop theoretical expectations about the conditions under which increases in the proportion of female legislators, in combination with institutional arrangements, will foster or stifle women’s opportunities and incentives to represent women’s interests. The chapter provides strong empirical support for the hypothesis that women behave differently conditional on institutional incentives. These findings imply that understanding institutions is key to understanding how and when female representatives will stand for women. Taken together, this dissertation makes an important contribution to our understanding of how changes in the proportion of female legislators and differences in institutional contexts shape women’s legislative behavior.Item Strategic Obfuscation through Bureaucratic Delegation(2014-04-25) Loftis, Matthew; Martin, Lanny W.; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Carroll, Royce A.; Lewis, Steven W.In this dissertation, I develop and test a theory of when politicians delegate more policy making responsibility to bureaucrats. Since minimizing blame for bad policy outcomes and claiming credit for good ones is a constant concern for politicians, the aim of reelection means it is preferable for politicians to distance themselves from policies that will be unpopular. For this reason, delegating power to bureaucrats has long been suspected of letting politicians shift responsibility for policies voters do not prefer. I move forward our understanding of this feature of democratic politics with a detailed formal theoretical model, from which I derive new empirical expectations. I test these in the contexts of both Western and Eastern Europe, drawing on unique features of the European Union policy harmonization process to build large cross-national datasets of policy making. I use the theoretical framework to explain how political corruption in Central and Eastern Europe, combined with political control over bureaucrats, gives politicians an incentive to make policy more discretionary to obscure political responsibility. Then, I apply the theory to explain how coalition governments in Western European parliamentary democracies use bureaucratic delegation to achieve cooperation between ruling parties discreetly, to avoid attracting voters' attention to compromise policies. The findings reveal support for the theoretical model and new insights on how the dynamics of coalition government and the cabinet's policy prerogatives in parliamentary democracies affect the transparency of the policy-making process, opportunities for corruption, and political control of policy outcomes.Item The Electoral Strategy of Legislative Politics: Balancing Party and Member Reputation in Japan and Taiwan(2012-09-05) Matsuo, Akitaka; Jones, Mark P.; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Martin, Lanny; Carroll, Royce A.; Lewis, Steven W.This thesis explores how political parties coordinate competing objectives, such as winning elections and influencing public policy with demands from their legislators whose interests lie principally in re-election and policy distribution. Electoral and legislative institutions affect the prioritizing of these goals and the appropriate strategy by which to achieve them. Utilizing two East Asian democracies, Japan and Taiwan, my dissertation evaluates this argument via the econometric analysis of various aspects of legislative behavior and policy outcomes, such as committee assignments and deliberations, and intergovernmental fiscal transfers. In regard to committee activities, there exists a significant difference between governing and opposition parties in terms of the expected role of their members on legislative committees. In regard to fiscal transfers, governing parties distribute fiscal resources strategically to party strongholds.