Ideology, electoral incentives, and congressional politics: The republican house class of 1994
Following the work of Downs and Mayhew, some theories of legislative politics assume that candidates are motivated only by electoral interests and their behavior is driven by the median voter in their district. Other theories, however, posit that legislator behavior is driven by additional factors such as member's policy interests or those of the primary constituency. It is our theoretical expectation that Downs was not incorrect but rather incomplete. In this article, we classify the Republican freshman representatives elected in 1994 according to these different motives and conclude that different motives are related to systematic differences in behavior. We observe pressure from the district median, and the representatives' primary electorate and personal ideological commitments exert a significant and independent effect on the positions taken by representatives. Our results indicate that members are influenced by factors outside of their district median. © 2006 Sage Publications.
Duke Scholars
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- Political Science & Public Administration
- 4408 Political science
- 1606 Political Science
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Political Science & Public Administration
- 4408 Political science
- 1606 Political Science