Are Congressional Leaders Middlepersons or Extremists? Yes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6300950 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steve Jessee (0000-0002-3937-6123, The University of Texas at Austin), Stephen Jessee, N Malhotra (0000-0003-4477-6049, California University of Pennsylvania) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 361-392 |
| Publication date | 2010-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Legislative Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0362-9805 • E-ISSN: 1939-9162 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3162/036298010792069170 |
| OpenAlex | W2051029857 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 14 |
| References cited | 40 |
Infuential theories of legislative organization predict that congressional leaders will be selected from the center of their parties. Yet previous research has generally rejected the “middleperson hypothesis,” finding leaders to be extremists. We challenged these findings by testing more‐appropriate null hypotheses via Monte Carlo simulation. We found that congressional leaders (and leadership candidates as a whole) tend to be closer to their party's median than would occur by chance, but leaders also tend to be selected from the left of the median for Democrats and to the right for Republicans. Compared to the pool of announced candidates for leadership positions, winners are not ideologically distinctive. This result suggests that factors affecting the ideology of leaders tend to operate more at the candidate emergence stage
Econometrics · Economics · Ideology · Legislature · Null hypothesis · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration
Opting Out of Congress
Polarization
From legislator to leader
Choosing the Leader
Are State Legislative Leaders Moderates
A tournament theory of congressional committee leadership
Ideological Moderates Won’t Run
Who Heeds the Call of the Party in Congress
Gender and Foreign Policy
Partisan Infighting Among House Republicans
Party, Policy, and the Ambition to Run for Higher Office
Use of ‘Dear Colleague’ Letters in the US House of Representatives
Interbranch Negotiations over Policies with Multiple Outcomes
Are Moderates Better Representatives than Extremists? A Theory of Indirect Representation
Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House
Party Polarization in Congress
Setting the Agenda
Legislative Entrepreneurship in the U.S. House of Representatives
Party Influence in Congress
The logic of delegation
Polarized America
Pivotal Politics
The Theory of Committees and Elections
Leadership PAC Formation and Distribution Strategies in the United States Senate
Why Party Leaders are More Extreme than Their Members
Changing Patterns of Voting Agreement Among Senatorial Leadership 1947-1976
On Capitol Hill
Testing Committee Composition Hypotheses for the U.S. Congress
Pre-Leadership Signaling in the U. S. House
The Institutionalization of Leadership in the U. S. Congress
The Price of Leadership
Legislative Leadership and Political Ideology
Goal Salience and the 2006 Race for House Majority Leader
Connecting the Congress
Congressional Leadership 1965–96
Leadership in Legislatures
Transformational Leader or Faithful Agent? Principal-Agent Theory and House Majority Party Leadership
Policy Partisanship in Legislative Leadership Recruitment and Behavior
How an Ideologically Concentrated Minority Can Trump a Dispersed Majority
Where's the Party
A Delayed Return to Historical Norms
The Strategic Context of Congressional Party Leadership
McCormack Versus Udall
Legislative Parties and Leadership Choice
The 2006 Race for Democratic Majority Leader
Middlemen No More? Emergent Patterns in Congressional Leadership Selection
Leading the Senate in the 110th Congress
Congressional Leadership on the Front Lines
Party Leadership Change in the United States House of Representatives
The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data
Partisan Patterns of House Leadership Change, 1789-1977
| Unique citing works | 14 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,08 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |