Determinants of presidential position taking in Congress, 1949–1995

Shull, Steven A.; Shaw, Thomas

doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2004.08.009

Cited by 4 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Schraufnagel and Shellman (2001: 700) concur, declaring that the use of CQ key votes is appropriate for “defining matters of substance” and “remov(ing) trivial or purely procedural roll call votes from consideration.” This would not be the case with data sets that account for all floor votes in the House and Senate. Shull and Shaw (2004) rightly point out that using all floor votes can complicate vote analysis in Congress since multiple votes are often connected to just one piece of legislation 11…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the variables that have been employed in this line of research are character and personality (Barber 1977); job approval ratings (Rivers and Rose 1985); and ideological polarization between the president and congressional majorities (Binder 1999; Rudalevige 2002; Marshall and Pacelle 2005). Still other scholars note that legislative success is largely limited or bolstered by the numerical strength of the president’s party in Congress (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Shull and Shaw 2004), and his role as party leader may only allow him to influence Congress “at the margins” (Edwards 1989).…”

Section: The Potential Influence Of Selection Effects On Presidentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…7 7 Shull and Shaw (2004) further assert that the president does not “consciously think about the size of the federal government when deciding to take a position, but that as an institutional constraint, it has factored into presidential actions without even being noticed.” (p. 600) …”

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confidence: 99%

“…11 11 In fact, Shull and Shaw (2004) chose not to include the Senate in their analysis since using all Senate votes would require them to include votes on non‐germane amendments that have no relevance to the legislation to which they are attached. …”

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confidence: 99%

“…14 14 In past research, Shull and Shaw (2004) and Canes‐Wrone and de Marchi (2002) have similarly accounted for the president’s party margin in the House and/or Senate by measuring the percentage of the president’s fellow party members in each chamber. …”

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confidence: 99%

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Foreign Policy Votes and Presidential Support in Congress

Mack

DeRouen

Lanoue

2011

Foreign Policy Analysis

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W.R. Mack, Karl DeRouen Jr and David Lanoue. (2011) Foreign Policy Votes and Presidential Support in Congress. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743‐8594.2011.00166.x This paper explores the role of foreign policy votes on presidential support in Congress. We postulate that a selection effect is inherent in this topic. Failing to consider that certain factors will influence whether a president takes a position on an issue in the first place can yield misleading results. For instance, presidents might not take positions during lame duck years or when their popularity is low. They might be more willing to take positions on international votes, votes requiring super majorities, or those that take place during a honeymoon period. In turn, this decision regarding position‐taking can bias the outcome. We also capture the relationship between Congress and public opinion in our models as it is important to consider that the Congress is listening to its constituents as well. If the public identifies international problems as the most important to the nation, Congress might be more willing to vote in favor of the president on international votes. Testing key vote data from 1953 to 2003 for each chamber, we show that presidents are more likely to take positions if the vote is international, if the public identifies the “most important problems” as international ones, and if the vote requires a super majority for passage. They are less likely to take positions if they are up for reelection and are lame ducks. In turn, international votes, the percentage of the public identifying international problems as the most important, and the size of the president’s majority have positive effects on presidential support. These findings are obscured if selection is not taken into account.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%