Jennifer Nicoll Victor

The Social Utility of Informal Institutions Caucuses as Networks in the 110th U.S. House of Representatives

This article challenges the existing state-of-knowledge about legislative caucuses by arguing that the caucus system reflects and reinforces formal organizing institutions, such as parties and committees, rather than counterbalancing them. We argue that legislators engage in the caucus system to maximize the social utility of their relationships. Using a social network framework, we develop and test hypotheses that seek to ascertain the types of legislators that assume elevated positions in the caucus network. We collect data on the complete population of caucuses and their members from the first session of the 110th U.S. House of Representatives and conduct social network analyses to find evidence that the caucus system supports the hierarchical structure of existing formal institutions.

Strategic Lobbying Demonstrating How Legislative Context Affects Interest Groups' Lobbying Tactics

Do interest groups strategically select lobbying tactics in response to the legislative context of policies they wish to influence? As rational actors, interest groups should be keen to spend their resources wisely by responding strategically to legislative contexts. This research suggests a theoretical and empirical framework and attempts to explain variations in interest group behavior at the policy level. The empirical design associates direct and indirect interest group lobbying activities with specific policies and tests the hypothesis that interest groups use legislative context as a part of their decision calculus when considering how to lobby Congress. I find that measures of legislative context are important components of models of direct and indirect lobbying.

Keeping Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer? Information Networks in Legislative Politics

The authors contribute to the existing literature on the determinants of legislative voting by offering a social network-based theory about the ways that legislators’ social relationships affect floor voting behaviour. It is argued that legislators establish contacts with both political friends and enemies, and that they use the information they receive from these contacts to increase their confidence in their own policy positions. Social contacts between political allies have greater value the more the two allies agree on policy issues, while social contacts between political adversaries have greater value the more the two adversaries disagree on policy issues. To test these propositions, we use social network analysis tools and demonstrate how to account for network dependence using a multilevel modelling approach.

Polarized Agents: Campaign Contributions by Lobbyists

Are professional lobbyists loyal partisans? There are thousands of professional lobbyists in Washington, D.C., who work with members of Congress and their staffs, many of whom also make contributions to congressional candidates and political parties. Although many lobbyists have backgrounds in partisan politics, they may have incentives to give money to candidates from both parties. This article finds that professional lobbyists tend to make personal contributions to their preferred party exclusively.

The Institutional Effect on Majority Rule Instability: Bicameralism in Spatial Policy Decisions

The purpose of this paper is to report on experiments that test for an independent effect of bicameralism on legislative stability. The experiments are designed to test the theory of the bicameral core (Hammond and Miller 1986), which demonstrates that a bicameral legislature is more apt to have stable undominated policy choices than a unicameral legislature with the same number of legislators holding the same preferences.

Legislating Versus Campaigning: The Legislative Behavior of Higher Office- Seekers

How does a campaign for higher office affect legislators’ behavior on the floor of the House? I argue that legislators with progressive ambition have incentives to demonstrate policy specialization; however, these incentives are mitigated when ambitious legislators campaign for higher office. I develop a measure of policy specialization from floor speeches and test hypotheses with data from the careers of five classes of representatives in the U.S. House. Results show that higher office-seekers demonstrate greater specialization, except when they run for higher office.How does a campaign for higher office affect legislators’ behavior on the floor of the House? I argue that legislators with progressive ambition have incentives to demonstrate policy specialization; however, these incentives are mitigated when ambitious legislators campaign for higher office. I develop a measure of policy specialization from floor speeches and test hypotheses with data from the careers of five classes of representatives in the U.S. House. Results show that higher office-seekers demonstrate greater specialization, except when they run for higher office.

Competing for the Platform: The Politics of Interest Group Influence on Political Party Platforms in the United States

While parties view interest groups as a means to mobilize voters, interest groups view parties and their platforms as a means to articulate interests. We demonstrate the conditions under which parties will articulate an organized interest group’s preferred positions in its quadrennial platform. A formal theoretical model predicts that parties will reward groups that can mobilize voters, as evidenced by a group’s resources, loyalty to the party, and ideological similarity to the party status quo. We test the formal model using content analysis on three years of DNC platforms and group testimony. Results show that parties reward loyal groups that are ideologically near the party, but that resources have no effect.

Competing for the platform: How organized interests affect party positioning in the United States

What explains which groups are included in a party coalition in any given election cycle? Recent advances in political party theory suggest that policy demanders comprise parties, and that the composition of a party coalition varies from election to election. We theorize three conditions under which parties articulate an interest group’s preferred positions in its quadrennial platform: when groups are ideologically proximate to the party median, when groups display party loyalty, and when groups are flush with resources. Using computer-assisted content analysis on a unique and rich data source, we examine three cycles of testimony that 80 organized groups provided to the Democratic Party. The analysis compares group requests with the content of Democratic and Republican National Committee platforms in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Results show that parties reward loyal groups and those that are ideologically proximate to the party but offer no confirmation of a resource effect.

Unraveling 2016: Comments on Gelman and Azari's 19 Things

Scholars, pundits, and wonks will be studying the 2016 election for a long time. The sheer number of unprecedented elements of the 2016 U.S. elections produced some shock fatigue and left even seasoned election watchers scratching their heads (Fallows 2017). Drawing on insights from data science, statistics, and political science, Julia Azari and Andrew Gelman identify an impressive 19 potentially productive threads to pull on in our attempt to unravel the mysteries of 2016. There are so many features of the 2016 election that strayed from the status quo that, like a spoiled experimental design, it is challenging for scholars to explain exactly why the election turned in the surprising ways it did. To name just a few, 2016 included the first female major party candidate, the first modern election with evidence of undue foreign influence, the first election with a nominee who had no government or military experience of any kind, and the list goes on. While some may find the Gelman–Azari treatment dissatisfying for being too shallow on any individual point, too contrived, or just too long of a list, I submit that their holistic approach to breaking down the oddities of 2016 is necessary given the circumstances. Here, I focus on four of the items on their list—two that I find worth underscoring and strongly worthy of further exploration, and two that are perhaps too complex to pursue, even if perfectly valid.