Party Balancing and Voting for Congress in the 1996 National Election

Smith, Charles E.; Brown, Robert D.; Bruce, John M.; Overby, L. Marvin

doi:10.2307/2991833

Cited by 31 publications

(65 citation statements)

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“…47 This is broadly consistent with Norputh's conclusion that divided government does not undermine economic voting since it does not diminish the public's belief in presidential accountability, regardless of what citizens may say they believe about the institutional balance of power. 48 In the 1996 elections, this worked to the distinct disadvantage of Republican congressional leaders, since many more Americans perceived the nation to be in relatively good economic shape: among those who answered to this question, almost 41 percent indicated that the national economy had improved over the preceding year, while fewer than 25 per cent indicated they believed the national economy had worsened.…”

Section: Descriptive Analysismentioning

confidence: 96%

Public opinion regarding congressional leaders: Lessons from the 1996 elections

Overby

2006

The Journal of Legislative Studies

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Section: Descriptive Analysismentioning

confidence: 96%

Public opinion regarding congressional leaders: Lessons from the 1996 elections

Overby

2006

The Journal of Legislative Studies

Self Cite

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“…Researchers offer mixed results for the balancing theory. While Sigelman, Wahlbeck, and Buell (1997) and Lacy (1998) find that ticket splitting does not reflect respondent preferences for divided government, Smith et al (1999) find significant support for balancing in the 1996 elections. 10 Scholars have suggested other reasons for divided government, characterized by Burden and Kimball (2002) as structural explanations.…”

Section: Pme and Divided Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, knowledge of a Congressional election's outcome might influence which party voters prefer to have in control of the White House. Research indicates that many voters had nonseparable preferences for the Presidential and House elections in 1996 (Smith et al 1999). If voters do indeed have non-separable preferences, the current system does not provide an adequate representation of their choices (Brams, Kilgour, and Zwicker 1997).…”

Section: Non-separable Preferences and Divided Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, researchers would benefit from additional evidence regarding the prevalence of non-separable preferences in the voting population. The existing evidence regarding non-separable preferences is somewhat limited (Smith et al 1999). More extensive proof of voters with non-separable preferences would amplify the importance of PME.…”

Section: Future Directions For Pme Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Paradox of Multiple Elections and Divided Government

Lowenthal¹

2006

ARP

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In this paper, I identify a relationship between the paradox of multiple elections (PME) (Brams, Kilgour, and Zwicker 1997, 1998) and divided government. PME occurs when voters who face several elections may not know the results of one election before they vote in another. Often the winning combination (the set of winners of each individual election) is not a combination that most voters prefer. ANES data shows that when elections result in divided government PME emerges; when elections result in one party rule, PME is not present. While the 2000 elections break a pattern found in the 12 previous presidential elections, a new definition explains the anomaly. This study concludes that elections reflect majority preferences when they exist, but otherwise tend to be some-hat arbitrary.

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“…The intuition behind the theory is fairly straightforward-some voters split their tickets simply because they prefer divided, but "balanced" government. In other words, a portion of voters tend to engage in intentionally, sophisticated voting behaviors (i.e., ticket splitting) to cause different partisan control of Congress and the presidency in order to ensure moderate policy (Alesina & Rosenthal, 1995; Carsey & Layman, 2001;Frymer, Kim, & Bimes, 1997;Lacy & Paolino, 1998;Lewis-Beck & Nadeau, 2004;Mebane, 2000;Smith, Brown, Bruce, & Overby, 1999). The balancing theory is appealing as it takes into account not only the policy differences between the two parties, but also the main feature of the US constitutionnamely, constant checks and balances due to the separation of powers purported by the nation's Founders.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Wants Checks and Balances? Endogeneity of the Balancing Perspective

Huang²,

Hsiao³

2015

Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research

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The premise of the intentional model of split-ticket voting is that some voters split their tickets simply because they prefer divided government and believe in constant "checks and balances." This article examines whether this premise stands firm in an emerging democracy like Taiwan. That is, by using survey data in Taiwan, we explore whether one's attitude toward divided or unified government is "real." We hypothesize that a citizen's attitude toward "checks and balances" is subject to change, and conditional on whether her preferred party is in power. Specifically, we speculate that a citizen would tend to hold the balancing perspective or favor divided government, if her preferred party is in opposition. However, if her preferred party becomes the ruling party, she would be more likely to oppose (hold) the balancing (non-balancing) perspective or favor unified government. We then utilize panel survey data embedded in Taiwan's Election and Democratization Studies (TEDS) to verify our hypothesis.Keywords: checks and balances; straight-and split-ticket voting; endogeneity 1 All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eric Chen-Hua Yu at Election Study Center & Department of Political Science, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan or by email at ericyu@nccu.edu.tw. Research -ISSN 2288-6168 (Online) Vol. 2 No.3 May 2015: 196-227 http://dx.doi.org/10.15206/ajpor.2015 Asian Journal for Public Opinion 197The phenomenon of divided government has attracted considerable scholarly attention in the study of American politics over the past decades. One of the major controversies is its cause. While divided government is an aggregated result of certain voting patterns, scholars tend to develop micro-level theories to explain why voters caste their votes in those ways.In the context of American politics, a divided government is not unusual. Yet, unlike the periods of divided government in the late nineteenth century, during which divided government mainly occurred in off-year elections as the electorate changed the majority party in congressional elections, divided government in the post World War II period is driven by the rise of split-ticket voting in presidential elections-votes for one party for president and the other party for their members of Congress (Brady, 1993;Fiorina, 1992).As split-ticket voting appears to be a common practice for a portion of voters and can be regarded as the main cause of a divided government, then the question becomes why voters tend to do so.Empirical research purports two major models to explain split-ticket voting: the intentional and unintentional models. The intentional model of split-ticket voting mainly follows the logic of "balancing theory" argued by Fiorina (1992Fiorina ( , 1996. The intuition behind the theory is fairly straightforward-some voters split their tickets simply because they prefer divided, but "balanced" government. In other words, a portion of voters tend to engage in intentionally, sophisticated voting behaviors (i.e., ticke...

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Party Balancing and Voting for Congress in the 1996 National Election

Cited by 31 publications

References 44 publications

Public opinion regarding congressional leaders: Lessons from the 1996 elections

Public opinion regarding congressional leaders: Lessons from the 1996 elections

The Paradox of Multiple Elections and Divided Government

Who Wants Checks and Balances? Endogeneity of the Balancing Perspective

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