Browsing by Author "Martin, Lanny W."

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    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, Ronald
    Incorporating 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.
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    Essays on Voter and Legislative Behavior in Coalitional Democracies
    (2012-09-05) Fortunato, David; Martin, Lanny W.; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Carroll, Royce A.; Sickles, Robin
    In 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.
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    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.
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    The Electoral Cost of Coalition Governance and Elites' Behavior in Parliamentary Democracies
    (2015-12-02) Lin, Cheng-Nan; Martin, Lanny W.; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Carroll, Royce; Lewis, Steven W.
    This dissertation examines the interaction between voters and party elites in parliamentary democracies, particularly those with multiparty governments. In the first half of the dissertation I focus on individual party supporters and explore their reactions to coalition policymaking. I develop a heuristic model that explains voters' preferences for coalition governance and the consequent impact of their preferences on voting behavior. I contend that party voters' preferences for coalition governance are associated with two simple heuristics: cabinet membership and their own ideological locations relative to parties in a coalition on the left-right policy spectrum. I find that party supporters who perceive themselves to be located between coalition partners are less likely to cast a punishing vote. This is because voters expect that policy compromise essentially brings cabinet parties closer to their own ideal points. In the second half of my dissertation, I derive a behavioral implication from the theory regarding the collaborative behavior of party elites. I argue that rational politicians should be able to predict the potential cost of coalition participation by gauging the size of ideological interior voters (i.e., party supporters located in between a pair of parties) they share with other parties, and that they can respond to this information by acting strategically. Specifically, political parties are more likely to cooperate with one another when they share more interior supporters than when they do not. This is because parties in such a situation face a lower cost of collaboration if they chose to partner with each other. I then examine this implication empirically by using data on parliamentary speeches and coalition partnerships. The empirical investigations show results that are consistent with my argument. I find party elites to be less likely to engage in lengthy floor debates on government policies and to be more likely to govern together when they share more interior voters. Taking all these findings together, this dissertation enhances our understanding of citizens' preferences for collective policymaking and of the connection between voters and political elites in parliamentary democracies.
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    Voter Demands and Representative Behavior
    (2017-08-02) Tromborg, Mathias W; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Martin, Lanny W.
    This dissertation analyzes whether and when voters get the type of representation that they prefer from their political representatives in contemporary democracies. Theoretically, I argue that individual representatives are motivated to respond to the demands of the voters in their districts because of personal vote-seeking incentives and party leader strategies. Likewise, governments have an office-seeking incentive to respond to demands from the national electorate when they produce policy. Empirically, I first show that vote-maximizing party behavior is not confined to mainstream parties, but applies to niche parties as well. Next, I show that individual representatives from parliamentary parties are responsive to policy demands from their district voters on issues that are not highly salient to the party’s brand, and that individual representatives in presidential democracies are more likely to prioritize the provision of national resources to their district when their district voters demand them more. Finally, I show that government social spending in OECD countries responds to the preferences of the median voter in the national electorate. These findings have important implications for the way that representation works in contemporary democracies.
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    What Makes Politics Interesting?: How Political Contexts Shape Political Interest Across the World
    (2015-04-16) Lee, Seonghui; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Alford, John R.; Martin, Lanny W.; Oswald, Fredrick L.
    Decades of behavior research have shown that political interest is the most important predictor of political knowledge and citizen participation. Political interest and knowledge, in turn, are at the core of democratic citizenship and the quality of representative democracy. An under-appreciated fact about political interest, however, is that typical levels of political interest (and thus political knowledge) vary dramatically across countries. Current theories of political interest and knowledge, however, explain little about why such differences occur and persist. This dissertation attempts to fill that void by proposing a novel theoretical framework for why individuals do or do not become interested in politics. This new theory leads directly to hypotheses about how typical levels of political interest can vary across different political contexts. The individual level theory draws on appraisal models of interest in psychology. These models show that appraising an event or a message as "comprehensible" (or, more generally, as being able to cope with it) is one of several necessary conditions for individuals to be interested in the event or message (e.g., Silvia 2006). Drawing on a large body of work in political psychology which highlights the critical role heuristics play in helping individuals comprehend politics, I extend the appraisal model of interest to include a role for heuristics in enhancing comprehensibility and therefore interest. Adding heuristics to the appraisal model of interest is the key to understanding cross-national variation in typical levels of political interest. Specifically, I argue that a specific set of simplifying heuristics that work to make politics more "comprehensible" is the main driver of the temporal and cross-national differences in political interest. The micro-foundations of the argument are examined by implementing a unique experimental design that manipulates the availability of heuristics for different groups. The experimental results support the proposed mechanism, demonstrating that individuals in contexts where heuristics are available and useful are more interested in experimental tasks. To validate the main argument for the cross-national differences in political interest, I introduce a set of measurements tapping into the political contexts associated with the availability and usefulness of common political heuristics, and test the argument using a comprehensive dataset combining a large pool of cross-national surveys and various contextual measures.