An event-history analysis of the disbandings of nationally active gay and lesbian rights advocacy groups in the United States for the period 1945-98 is presented. Specifically, the hypothesis (which comes from population-ecology theory) is tested that the survival prospects of gay and lesbian rights interest groups are related non-monotonically to the number of groups in the population (i.e., density). The statistical analyses presented support the hypothesis: as density rises from near zero to high, the death rate first decreases but eventually increases. Several other hypotheses are also tested, and among the findings is the following: the survival prospects of gay and lesbian rights interest groups are related non-monotonically to group age -as group age increases, a group's probability of death first rises but then decreases.
This article characterizes the electoral consequences of messages of institutional loyalty and disloyalty sent by incumbent House members to their constituents. We show that, for the contemporary House, there is variation in these messages—not all incumbents in the contemporary House “run for Congress by running against Congress.” Moreover, we show that these messages can, under the right conditions, have significant electoral consequences, even after controlling for party affiliation and district political factors. In addition to demonstrating the electoral relevance of legislators' presentations, our results show an incumbent‐level link between constituents' trust in government and their voting behavior—a link created by interaction between constituents' perceptions, legislators' party affiliations, and the messages that legislators send to their constituents.
The Internet is often viewed as a replacement for “old” modes of communication, a tool used by news seekers, including public officials, to bypass traditional news media. However, the authors show that the arrival of this “new” media has not caused officials to forsake journalists and abandon traditional media. Instead, they are utilizing theWeb as a new method for seeking coverage from the old media. By conducting a content analysis of the official Web sites of every member of the U.S. Congress, the authors reveal that about three-quarters of these legislators explicitly employ their site to try to attract journalists and traditional reporting. In addition, the authors examine the types of features that are included to make congressional Web sites “media friendly” and the extent to which each of these is used by members. Finally, they discuss some of the factors that explain the variance among legislators in regard to their use of Web sites for this purpose.
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