Scot Schraufnagel

Candidate Age and Youth Voter Turnout

The research addresses youth voter turnout in the United States and, specifically, tests the relationship between candidate age and a commitment to vote by young people in a controlled experiment. We learn that potential young voters are more willing to commit to vote when they view pictures of younger candidates running. This is the case after controlling for the age and partisanship of respondents. In a real-world test of our experimental results, we examine state-level variation in youth voter turnout in midterm governor and Senate races (1994-2010). In the state-level analysis, we find a larger candidate age gap in governor and Senate races associates with higher levels of youth mobilization. In all, the research affirms the value of candidate characteristics as a predictor of voting behavior.

Congress and the Polarity Paradox: Party Polarization, Member Incivility and Enactment of Landmark Legislation, 1891–1994

This research demonstrates that a polarity paradox exists in the enactment of landmark laws by the U.S. Congress. Moderate conflict facilitates the production of landmark laws whereas movement to the polar extremes of conflict—toward low or high conflict—inhibits it. The number of landmark laws passed by a Congress is low when polarization between the parties is low, particularly if uncivil interpersonal conflict within the parties is low, and when polarization between the parties is high, particularly if uncivil interpersonal conflict between the parties is high. Movement away from these polar extremes toward moderate conflict yields increased landmark productivity.

The Price of Corruption in Congress

Abstract The research uncovers an increase in the disapproval of Congress and a drop in public trust in government associated with exposed congressional corruption in the post-Watergate era. The tools Congress holds to punish members caught up in scandal are discussed and the chapter considers five major scandals to rock Congress since the 1970s. Importantly, we uncover evidence that government institutions and actors are somewhat resilient and can bounce back after experiencing negative public sentiment for a period of time. Yet, it seems in the aftermath of exposed corruption, the corresponding drop in public support has policy implications. We determine that movement in public disapproval of Congress and overall trust in government help explain public law output and the ability of Congress to pass its contemporary legislative agenda.

Assessing the Effects of Personal Characteristics and Context on U.S. House Speakers’ Leadership Styles, 1789-2006

Research on congressional leadership has been dominated in recent decades by contextual interpretations that see leaders’ behavior as best explained by the environment in which they seek to exercise leadership—particularly, the preference homogeneity and size of their party caucus. The role of agency is thus discounted, and leaders’ personal characteristics and leadership styles are underplayed. Focusing specifically on the speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives from the first to the 110th Congress, we construct measures of each speaker’s commitment to comity and leadership assertiveness. We find the scores reliable and then test the extent to which a speaker’s style is the product of both political context and personal characteristics. Regression estimates on speakers’ personal assertiveness scores provide robust support for a context-plus-personal characteristics explanation, whereas estimates of their comity scores show that speakers’ personal backgrounds trump context.

Right-to-Die Legislation: A Note on Factors Associated with Its Adoption

Legislation allowing for some form of death prior to it naturally occurring presently exists in very few industrial democracies. This article explores what large-scale economic and social factors may be associated with the legality of right-do-die measures, namely, a nations health care expenditures, the old-age dependency ratio, religious pluralism, and homicide and suicide rates. Using data from several sources, we find an association among these factors and right-to-die legislation. Four of the six countries with recent experience of legalized physician-aided death ranked in the top 50% of countries on our combined measure of the five factors under examination. Implications of this study and suggestions for future research of this timely issue are discussed.

J. David Gillespie, Challengers to duopoly: Why third parties matter in American two-party politics, reviewed by Scot Schraufnagel

elite culture which provided common forums, which had long arranged partial compromises, and which did much to socialize newcomers in traditional modes of decisionmaking’ (p. 242). At the very end of his reflections on the development of the study of comparative politics, Daalder concludes (p. 281) that comparative politics ‘stands before its greatest challenge yet. Never before were so many fundamental questions raised at one and the same time about the development of democracy, democratic governance and related performances’. And he adds with characteristic caution: ‘In all honesty one should acknowledge that it provides few definite answers.’