Partisan Preferences in Southern State Legislatures Público
Gunning, Matthew Lynn (2011)
Abstract
Abstract
Partisan Preferences in Southern State Legislatures
By Matthew Gunning
Recent scholarship on political party strength in the U.S. House of
Representatives has focused
upon the revival of formal party leadership positions. Other
scholars have suggested these
changes are not meaningful because parties cannot cause House
members to vote against their
preferences. This debate has caused scholars to look for empirical
evidence of direct party
effects-situations where the presence of political party activity
could be credited with shifting
or biasing outcomes.
This dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of
party influence by looking at
evidence of indirect party effects on legislator preferences. In
particular it seeks to demonstrate
that through their monopoly over the nomination phase of elections
parties select in favor of
candidates who hold a specific party-ideology. This partisan filter
effect on legislator preferences
is present when primary voters are polarized between the two
parties.
A cross-sectional examination of ten southern State House
chambers will demonstrate that when
competitive parties exist across that region, the filtering effect
of parties produces a predictable
polarization of legislator preferences. Legislators who survive the
polarized nominating
electorate tend to be non-centrist in their ideological location.
In contrast, this polarization effect
is lacking during the one-party period when nearly all registered
voters participated in the same
nominating election.
A second indirect effect of parties is the reduction of the
multi-dimensional policy space. When a
competitive party system exists and polarized electorates filter in
favor of candidates who adopt
the party ideology, roll call voting within the legislative chamber
is primarily one-dimensional.
When party filtering is absent, the policy space is
multi-dimensional.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and Background 1
CHAPTER TWO: Historical Variation of U.S. Parties 9
CHAPTER THREE: Preferences, Primaries and Polarization 25
CHAPTER FOUR: Political Parties and Spatial Constraints 44
CHAPTER FIVE: Political Change in Georgia 1960-2005 60
CHAPTER SIX: Coalition Voting Patterns in the Georgia House
1960-2005 75
CHAPTERS SEVEN: Party, Preferences and Sequence 104
CHAPTER EIGHT: Conclusion 112
About this Dissertation
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