Stephen A. Borrelli

The Effect of State Economic Conditions on Gubernatorial Elections: Does Unified Government Make a Difference?:

This research addresses two questions of current interest in American po litics : Does divided government reduce accountability? Do voters reward or punish incumbent governors and/or their parties on the basis of state economic performance? A multivariate pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of aggregate election outcomes from 1972-91 in forty-three states reveals that the effect of state unemployment on the incumbent guber natorial partys vote percentage is greatly enhanced when the governors party controls both chambers of the state legislature. This evidence is con sistent with the claim made by responsible party theorists that voters are more able and/or willing to reward or punish a political party when that partys responsibility for government performance is complete.

Confidence in Government During the 1980s

Data from the American National Election Studies are used to examine trends in political trust for the period of 1980 to 1988. The data reveal a substantial growth in trust during the first half of the eighties, followed by plummeting confidence in government at the end of the decade. A number of plausible explanations for these shifts in public trust are examined. The analysis reveals that the downturn in trust after 1984 was not a response to the Iran-Contra scandal of 1986. Rather, it reflected the emerging perception that Reagan lacked compassion, as well as growing dissatisfaction with foreign and domestic policies.

Partisan Consequences of the Post-1990 Redistricting for the U.S. House of Representatives

Following each recent round of redistricting, scholars have tried to determine whether that round worked to one partys advantage and whether control of the redistricting process by members of one party led to gerrymandering. They have reached mixed conclusions. Here, we examine the partisan consequences of the post-1990 redistricting for the U.S. House of Representatives. We create two sets of projections of partisan support levels for the 1990 and 1992 districts based on district-level 1988 presidential election data. One set of projections assumes an incumbency advantage, and one set assumes the hypothetical situation of all open seats, i.e., no incumbency advantage. We ask whether either party benefited and whether gerrymandering occurred. When we take incumbency into account, we find that our projections show that the two parties came out just about even in redistricting, with an increase in the number of districts evenly split between them. However, when we assume all open seats, our projections show an increase of 21 Republican districts, a decrease of 3 Democratic districts, and a decrease of 17 evenly split districts. We conclude that the Republican party gained from redistricting and that incumbency and other short-term factors obscure changes in the underlying partisan support in districts. In a state-level analysis of redistricting outcomes, we find no evidence that parties succeeded in using control of state government to gain partisan advantage through redistricting.

Congressional responsiveness to presidential popularity: The electoral context

A number of recent studies have reported that the influence of the presidents public approval rating on congressional support is not substantial. We hypothesize that this unexpected finding might be the result of the inappropriate application of an approval-driven model of legislative voting to the entire Congress. Specifically, we argue that members from certain kinds of electoral contexts—constituencies where the presidents, or their own, electoral standing is in doubt—should be especially likely to vary their support for the president with changes in his approval rating. Although the patterns of presidential support scores between 1977 and 1991 do not confirm our specific hypotheses, they do suggest that the electoral context from which a legislator emerges does shape his or her responsiveness to changes in national presidential approval.

A New Look at Turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789-1998

Despite concern with turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives, few scholars have attempted to view turnover in historical perspective or in all its forms. Confusion over the basic facts has impeded attempts to explain and evaluate levels of turnover. We present a broad descriptive overview of turnover over the entire history of the U.S. House in terms of the levels of overall turnover, forms thereof, and patterns, particularly within party periods. The findings include that turnover has declined over the years but not in a continuous fashion and not evenly among the different forms, that general election defeat is not the primary form of turnover, that common methods of reporting turnover magnify the apparent importance of electorally based turnover, and that turnover varies systematically by party period. A research agenda is proposed for explanatory work on turnover including strategic retirement and the impact of partisan realignments on levels and forms of turnover.

Getting Inside the Beltway: Perceptions of Presidential Skill and Success in Congress

Different methodological approaches sometimes lead to different substantive conclusions. Nowhere is this more evident than in studies relating assessments of presidential skill to legislative success. Scholars of the historical, traditionalist school of presidency research argue that presidents who are perceived to be adept at getting what they want are more likely to achieve their legislative goals than are those perceived as less adept. Neustadt identifies perceived skill, or what he calls ‘professional reputation’, as one of the three resources that are the essence of presidential power. Yet students of the presidency who employ quantitative methods have found little or no systematic relationship between variations in skill evaluations and variations in success. George Edwards reports thai similarly situated Congressmen are not especially more likely to support highly esteemed presidents than lowly esteemed presidents. Fleisher and Bond similarly find that once contextual variables have been controlled for, there is no pattern suggesting that presidents thought to be highly skilled do better with Congress.

The politics and economics of revenue growth: A cross-national analysis

Despite considerable interest in comparative fiscal policy in general, and the high salience of tax policy and tax reform in the industrialized democracies, there are relatively few cross-national studies of the economic and political correlates of revenues over time. We undertake a cross-national time series study of revenue growth in fourteen OECD countries between 1958 and 1990. We test a number of political and economic hypotheses about revenue change, including political business cycle, ‘fiscal illusion’, elasticity, and ideological theories. For the 1958–1990 period, we find that all countries, regardless of revenue structure, experience higher real revenue growth as a result of inflation, but that revenue growth is more responsive to unemployment in countries that rely more on direct taxes compared to countries with less direct-tax reliance. We find that this effect is most pronounced in the post-1972 period. We also find that revenue tends to increase in the years following elections, consistent with the idea that governments try to minimize the political fallout from tax increases by separating them as much as possible from election campaign periods; this effect, too, is most pronounced in the post-1972 period. We find no support for ‘fiscal illusion’ and ideological theories of revenue growth.

An Investment in Goodwill: Party Contributions and Party Unity Among U.S. House Members in the 1980s

Despite the growing importance of political parties as campaign service providers and as organizational forces in the U.S. House, few have explored the linkages between party campaign activities in House elections and partisan behavior within the House. In this article, we explore the possibility that financial contributions by party committees during the election cycle might motivate House members to support the party line more often after the election. Examining data on all Democrats and Republicans successfully reelected to the House during the 1980s, we find evidence that those who received larger shares of their campaign receipts from party sources showed greater-than-expected levels of party unity during the session of Congress immediately following the election.

Policy and performance orientations in the United States

Abstract The 1980 and 1984 United States elections marked a major turning point in the ideological orientation of public policy. Many argued that these elections reflected a policy mandate by the electorate who preferred Reagans conservative policies. Two dimensions are employed to compare voting decisions in the elections from 1952 to 1984. The first dimension determines whether citizens evaluate candidates on the basis of policies, performance, or strictly candidate attributes; the second examines the time perspective of these assessments, that is, whether they are retrospective or prospective. Data from the University of Michigan, National Election Studies reveal that the single most important factor, and the only one that can account for Reagans electoral victories was retrospective performance. In 1984, Reagan enjoyed a landslide re-election victory because a substantial fraction of the electorate voted against their own policy interests and rewarded Reagan with another term because of his past performance. The 1984 election outcome, therefore, was a reward, not a mandate.

The impact of tax structures on deficits: tax elasticity and fiscal illusion in sixteen oecd countries

This paper represents the first systematic attempt to link revenue structure to deficits cross-nationally. Recent analyses of the causes of increased budget deficits in the industrialized countries have focused on the factors that influence government spending, ignoring the possibility that chronic deficits might also be caused by shortfalls in revenue. In this research, using data from sixteen OECD countries during the period 1959-1990, we test hypotheses regarding the linkage between a countrys revenue structure and its experience with deficits. We find evidence that countries heavily dependent on direct taxes had more difficulty keeping spending and revenues in line, particularly during times of high unemployment. We find no evidence, however, of a “fiscal illusion” impact on deficits.