Appropriators not Position Takers
The Distorting Effects of Electoral Incentives on Congressional Representation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6231020 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Justin Grimmer (0000-0001-6642-9799, Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 624-642 |
| Publication date | 2013-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ajps.12000 |
| OpenAlex | W1516873729 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 115 |
| References cited | 49 |
Congressional districts create two levels of representation. Studies of representation focus on a disaggregated level: the electoral connection between representatives and constituents. But there is a collective level of representation—the result of aggregating across representatives. This article uses new measures of home styles to demonstrate that responsiveness to constituents can have negative consequences for collective representation. The electoral connection causes marginal representatives—legislators with districts composed of the other party's partisans—to emphasize appropriations in their home styles. But it causes aligned representatives—those with districts filled with copartisans—to build their home styles around position taking. Aggregated across representatives, this results in an artificial polarization in stated party positions: aligned representatives, who tend to be ideologically extreme, dominate policy debates. The logic and evidence in this article provide an explanation for the apparent rise in vitriolic debate, and the new measures facilitate a literature on home styles
Economics · Geography · House of Representatives · Ideology · Incentive · Legislature · Microeconomics · Polarization (electrochemistry · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Representation (politics · Sociology · Style (visual arts · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Finance · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration
Clients and Constituents
Constitutional Amendment Proposals as Position-Taking Activity in the U.S. House of Representatives (1979–2020)
Party Competition, Personal Votes, and Strategic Disloyalty in the U.S. States
Sanctuary Cities
Handbook of Computational Social Science for Policy
Pivots or Partisans? Proposal-Making Strategy and Status Quo Selection in Congress
From Consensus to Fracture
How National Cues Polarize Perceptions of Political Figures
Ulterior Oversight
Claiming and Blaming
Affective Representation in Congress
'Unfinished Business'
Return to Spender
Linkages of Electoral Accountability
Democratic incumbent resilience in the post-1980 Senate
The Partypress Database
Reward of legislating
The representation of women in politics, addressing the supply side
The Selling of Experience in the 2022 Congressional Elections
Beyond Credit Claiming
Proportional Classification Revisited
Prior Experience and State Legislative Effectiveness
Proving Her Strength
The Partisanship of House Committees and Member Self‐Selection
Getting what you pay for
Measuring the Content of Presidential Policy Making
Analytic Bureaucracy and the Policy Process
The conditioning role of polarization in U.S. senate election outcomes
Candidate ideology and electoral success in congressional elections
Confederate Imagery in Congressional Rhetoric
Credit Claiming in the European Union
Relating Latent Class Assignments to External Variables
And keep your enemies closer
Rivals or Allies? A Multilevel Analysis of Cosponsorship within State Delegations in the U.S. Senate
Do Local Roots Impact Washington Behaviors? District Connections and Representation in the U.S. Congress
Following the leaders
Geographic representation and requests for federal funds in the U.S. senate
Friendship is Rare
Asymmetric Polarization in Online Media Engagement in the United States Congress
Elections and Divisiveness
Ideological Donors, Contribution Limits, and the Polarization of American Legislatures
Democratization and Linguistic Complexity
Selective Attention and the Information Environment
Using Social Media Data to Reveal Patterns of Policy Engagement in State Legislatures
Do Male and Female Legislators Have Different Twitter Communication Styles
More Money, Less Credit? Legislator Gender and the Effectiveness of Congressional Credit Claiming
Morality and the Glass Ceiling
Strategic government communication about performance
The motivational basis of constituency work
From cradle to congress
Campaign Cost and Electoral Accountability
How the refugee crisis and radical right parties shape party competition on immigration
Coalition Governments and Party Competition
Partisan Asymmetries in Earmark Representation
Revisiting Descriptive Representation in Congress
Who Should Get a Say? Race, Law Enforcement Guidelines, and Systems of Representation
Pathologies of Studying Public Opinion, Political Communication, and Democratic Responsiveness
Economic Segregation and Unequal Policy Responsiveness
Words Speak Louder than Actions
Text as Data
Topics, Concepts, and Measurement
News Sharing on Social Media
Modeling Issue Definitions Using Quantitative Text Analysis
Sustained Organizational Influence
Collective Representation in Congress
Representation in an Era of Political and Economic Inequality
How Policy and Procedure Shape Citizens' Evaluations of Senators
Getting Tough on China
Extremity in Congress
Priority Projects
Doubling Down
Responsive rhetoric
The Effects of High‐Information Environments on Legislative Behavior in the US House of Representatives
Selection and Incentives in the Electoral Security‐Constituency Communication Relationship
All the President's Senators
Multidimensional Responsiveness
Behavioral Consequences of Open Candidate Recruitment
From rhetoric to record
Speaking Volumes
Exposure to Offshoring and the Politics of Trade Liberalization
Speechmaking and the Selectorate
Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters
Losing Touch
Do electoral district size and diversity affect legislative behaviour
Large-Scale Computerized Text Analysis in Political Science
Explaining Explanations
Preaching to the Choir
Keyword‐Assisted Topic Models
Presidential Cues and the Nationalization of Congressional Rhetoric, 1973–2016
A Choice‐Based Measure of Issue Importance in the Electorate
Multidimensional Representation
The Importance of Breaking Even
Get Information or Get in Formation
Believing What Politicians Communicate
Representation and Legislative Roles in Congress
Impeaching the President
Fenno’s Paradox in a Polarized Age
Representation by the Minute
The Collective “Congress” on the Ballot? A Voter and Aggregate-Level Analysis of Collective Responsibility in Congressional Elections
Limited Time, Limited Resources
The Personal Vote
Congressmen's Voting Decisions
When Politicians Attack
Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models
Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Smoothing Scatterplots
Home Style
Party, Electoral Vulnerability, and Earmarks in the U.S. House of Representatives
Incumbency, Redistricting, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections
Congress, The Electoral Connection
Congress
The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle
The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs
An Introduction to Bayesian Inference via Variational Approximations
The Personal Vote
Measuring District-Level Partisanship with Implications for the Analysis of U.S. Elections
Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design
Different Houses
Eschewing Obfuscation? Campaigns and the Perception of U.S. Senate Incumbents
House Members' Communication Styles
Congressional Elections and the Pork Barrel
Polarization of What? A Model of Elections with Endogenous Valence
Delivering the Goods
A Bayesian Hierarchical Topic Model for Political Texts
Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology
District Complexity and the Personal Vote
The Representational Experience
Measuring Representation
How Should We Estimate Public Opinion in The States
Measuring Representation
District Complexity as an Advantage in Congressional Elections
Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization
A Method of Automated Nonparametric Content Analysis for Social Science
The Senate Electoral Cycle and Bicameral Appropriations Politics
Press Secretaries and Media Strategies in the House of Representatives
The Electoral Costs of Party Loyalty in Congress
A Model of Candidate Location When One Candidate Has a Valence Advantage
How to Analyze Political Attention with Minimal Assumptions and Costs
Constituency Influence in Congress
Rethinking Representation
Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress
The President and the Distribution of Federal Spending
The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data
Out of Step, Out of Office
| Unique citing works | 115 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8,21 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2026 (15) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 115 |