We show how symbolic politics condition public opinion on federal spending and how this helps to explain an important puzzle in contemporary American politics. Using multilevel regression and poststratification to estimate state-level opinion on federal spending, we show that, curiously, opposition to federal spending is higher in states receiving more federal money, per tax dollar paid. Belying the popular narrative surrounding so-called “red state socialism,” we find that simple hypocrisy does not explain this paradox—individuals who are likely to benefit from spending tend to support it. But, income is a more powerful predictor of opinion on spending in “taker” states than “giver” states, heightening state-level opposition in the former. There is also more to the story than economic self-interest. Symbolic racism is four times more powerful than income in explaining opposition to spending, and there are more people with such attitudes in states receiving more federal money.
Public majorities have supported several gay rights policies for some time, yet Congress's response has been limited. We document and analyze this tension through dyadic analysis of the opinion-vote relationship on 23 roll calls between 1993 and 2010, revealing a nuanced picture of responsiveness and incongruence. While constituent preferences influence white male Democrats, black lawmakers and white female Democratic lawmakers generally support gay rights and Republicans consistently oppose them, regardless of constituent preferences. Moreover, changes in constituent opinion typically fail to engender vote changes. In sum, despite a degree of responsiveness to opinion, we find there is a persistent bias against constituent will on LGB rights. Scholars have long argued that public opinion tends to shape government policy (e.g., Page and Shapiro 1983; Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995). The potential for policy change in the realm of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) rights is therefore thought to depend on cultivating public support. Yet, support has not translated straightforwardly into policy gains on LGB rights issues. National and subnational public opinion data show that Americans favor a variety of legal protections for LGB individuals (Egan and Sherrill 2005; Brewer 2008), yet these protections have not always been adopted. It is therefore difficult to gauge what kind of congressional action-if any-to expect in
Why have group-party alliances become more common since the mid-twentieth century? To address this question, I develop a continuum of group-party relationships, running from fluid, unstructured interactions, akin to political pluralism, to highly institutionalized alliances, as we might see in a firm. Drawing on pluralist scholarship and theories of firm formation and evolution, I explore the costs and benefits of different arrangements and explain why we might expect to see movement along the continuum over time. On the one hand, pluralism offers flexibility to parties and groups, and alliances have little value when parties are too weak to discipline their members in Congress. On the other, institutionalized alliances offer significant efficiency and security gains, which are especially valuable during periods of growth. I demonstrate the plausibility of this organizational theory by examining the evolution of group-party relations in the executive branch from the Nixon through Reagan administrations using archival documents collected at four presidential libraries.
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