Eric R. A. N. Smith

The Electoral Fortunes of Women Candidates for Congress

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why women remain underrepresented in Congress. One of those hypotheses is that some voters have blatant prejudices against women politicians, while others hold stereotypes about men and women politicians that favor men. In contrast, others claim that women candidates for Congress actually have an advantage in running for office because voters prefer women politicians. We test those hypotheses using pooled 1988, 1990, and 1992 National Election Studies data and the pooled 1988-1992 Senate Election Study and building on Krasnos (1994) model of voter choice in House and Senate elections. We find evidence that some voters prefer women candidates in House races, but not in Senate races. The advantage for women candidates in races with a challenger and incumbent is slight and can be attributed to the strong support of well-educated women voters. An advantage for women candidates is more pronounced in open-seat contests. In open-seat races, women voters, regardless of their education levels, more strongly support women candidates. Overall, candidate sex was not significant to male voters.

The Effect of Partisan Information on Voters in Nonpartisan Elections

How does partisan information affect individual voting behavior in nonpartisan elections? Using data from a 1982 California Poll survey on state supreme court confirmation elections we demonstrate that nonpartisan elections are easily turned into partisan contests in the minds of voters. Partisan information increases the probability of an individual holding an opinion on the elections, and results in votes which are based on the respondents partisan identification and opinion of the governor who appointed the justice. The implications of these results for nonpartisan elections in general and merit retention contests in particular are also discussed.

The Role of Candidate Sex in Voter Decision-Making

Recent studies investigating the role of candidate sex in voter decision-making have not found discrimination against women candidates. Thus, voter bias is often dismissed as part of the explanation for the drastic underrepresentation of women in high elective office. In a dual sample of Wyoming and California college students, bias against women candidates was found to be a factor in the vote choice. Studies that examine only one sample of voters in one region may be prematurely dismissing the possible existence of gender discrimination in some regions or cultures within the United States.

Growing Support for Gay and Lesbian Equality Since 1990

Since 1991, public acceptance of gays and lesbians has grown dramatically. We use two approaches to examine changing attitudes in U.S. survey data. First, we conduct cohort analyses showing that both generational replacement and period effects are having impacts. Since 1991, older, less accepting generations of Americans have been dying and being replaced by younger, more tolerant Americans, and all age groups have been becoming more tolerant. Second, we pool cross-sectional, time series survey data to show that there has been a broad, dramatic increase in virtually every groups acceptance of gays and lesbians over time.

Nimbyism vs. environmentalism in attitudes toward energy development

Nimbyism (‘Not in My Backyard’ opinions) and environmentalism are distinct concepts, but are easily confounded in practice. Do people object to proposed developments because they are environmentalists or because the developments are too close to where they live? This question is addressed using data from two public opinion surveys of Californians regarding their attitudes toward oil drilling. Our surveys allow examination of both environmentalism and Nimby effects among people who live within view of offshore oil platforms, among people who live in the same region, and among people who live quite far away. We find strong evidence that environmentalism influences attitudes, but no evidence of nimbyism – despite the fact that many respondents live in an area that is reputed to be a centre of anti-oil, Nimby behaviour. This suggests that nimbyism might be a pattern of political activism, rather than of public opinion.

The Other Side of the NIMBY Syndrome

Whenever a neighborhood or community group objects to a proposed development in their area, someone questions whether the objections are part of a NIMBY, or Not in My Backyard, pattern of responses. According to past studies, one characteristic of a typical NIMBY syndrome is a lack of trust in project sponsors or experts. Most researchers argue that distrust leads to the NIMBY syndrome. Margolis (1996), however, argues that opposition to a proposed development may cause distrust. In this article, we investigate opposition to off shore oil development in California using focusing groups of local political activists on both sides of the issue. Previous research has largely ignored project supporters when studying NIMBY responses. We find that supporters and opponents are quite similar, especially in their distrust of one another. That is, distrust characterizes both sides in NIMBY situations. We believe that our findings make Margoliss claim that distrust does not cause NIMBY responses more plausible.Whenever a neighborhood or community group objects to a proposed development in their area, someone questions whether the objections are part of a NIMBY, or Not in My Backyard, pattern of responses. According to past studies, one characteristic of a typical NIMBY syndrome is a lack of trust in project sponsors or experts. Most researchers argue that distrust leads to the NIMBY syndrome. Margolis (1996), however, argues that opposition to a proposed development may cause distrust. In this article, we investigate opposition to off shore oil development in California using focusing groups of local political activists on both sides of the issue. Previous research has largely ignored project supporters when studying NIMBY responses. We find that supporters and opponents are quite similar, especially in their distrust of one another. That is, distrust characterizes both sides in NIMBY situations. We believe that our findings make Margoliss claim that distrust does not cause NIMBY responses more plausible.

The Measurement Characteristics of Congressional Roll-Call Indexes

In this paper, we present an analysis of the measurement characteristics of five congressional roll-call indexes. Our analysis is based on a 1987 survey of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the scores those representatives received on the following indexes: the Americans for Democratic Action index, the Conservative Coalition score and the three National Journal ratings. With these data, we examine the reliability and the validity of the roll-call indexes. We find the ADA and Conservative Coalition indexes to be valid measures of ideology. There are questions about the validity of the National Journal ratings. All the indexes were highly reliable.

Postmaterialism vs. Egalitarianism as Predictors of Energy-related Attitudes1

One of the central questions facing those who study environmental politics is: What causes people’s opinions on environmental issues? Although public opinion researchers have done a fairly good job explaining opinions in other policy areas, they have not done a good job with opinions on environmental policies. Previous studies have shown that the researcher’s standard tool kit – demographic variables plus party identification and self-identified ideology – do not explain environmental attitudes very well (Van Liere & Dunlap, 1980; Jones & Dunlap, 1992). Consequently, most researchers are turning their attention to deeply held values and cultural worldviews. In this paper, we investigate two well-known explanations for the rise of environmentalism – Inglehart’s postmaterialism theory, and Douglas and Wildavsky’s cultural theory. Although much has been written about the two theories, they have not been tested against one another as explanations of environmental attitudes except in two studies which use non-US data (Grendstad & Selle, 1997; Carrière & Scruggs, 2001). Our paper will directly compare the two. Specifically, we examine the predictive power of Inglehart’s postmaterialism scale, indexes of egalitarianism and individualism from cultural theory, and conventional measures of party identification and liberal–conservative ideology. Overall, we find that the egalitarianism and individualism indexes from cultural theory perform far better in predicting environmental attitudes than the postmaterialism scale. We recognise, of course, that Inglehart’s claims about the relationship between postmaterialism and environmentalism cannot be refuted with a single, disconfirming study. However, we believe that our results should spur further comparison of the two theories.

The public's trust in scientific claims regarding offshore oil drilling

Our study examines how individuals decide which scientific claims and experts to believe when faced with competing claims regarding a policy issue. Using an experiment in a public opinion survey, we test the source content and credibility hypotheses to assess how much confidence people have in reports about scientific studies of the safety of offshore oil drilling along the California coast. The results show that message content has a substantial impact. People tend to accept reports of scientific studies that support their values and prior beliefs, but not studies that contradict them. Previous studies have shown that core values influence message acceptance. We find that core values and prior beliefs have independent effects on message acceptance. We also find that the sources of the claims make little difference. Finally, the public leans toward believing reports that oil drilling is riskier than previously believed.

Evolving California opinion on offshore oil development

Whether oil companies should be allowed to drill more oil wells along the California coast is the subject of a great deal of conflict. We examine public opinion on the question using a series of public opinion polls of Californians. We find that public support for coastal oil development has sharply declined since 1980. The groups most supportive of drilling are conservatives, Republicans, the least well educated, the old, and non-whites. Surprisingly, proximity to offshore oil development is not related to support. These findings give us a basis for predicting that support for further oil drilling will continue to decline. Finally, we show that the publics attitudes on energy policy do not lead to any practical energy policy.