Thomas L. Brunell

The European Court of Justice, State Noncompliance, and the Politics of Override

In an article previously published by the APSR, Carrubba, Gabel, and Hankla claim that the decision making of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has been constrained—systematically—by the threat of override on the part of member state governments, acting collectively, and by the threat of noncompliance on the part of any single state. They also purport to have found strong evidence in favor of intergovernmentalist, but not neofunctionalist, integration theory. On the basis of analysis of the same data, we demonstrate that the threat of override is not credible and that the legal system is activated, rather than paralyzed, by noncompliance. Moreover, when member state governments did move to nullify the effects of controversial ECJ rulings, they failed to constrain the court, which continued down paths cleared by the prior rulings. Finally, in a head-to-head showdown between intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism, the latter wins in a landslide.

Redistricting and representation: Why competitive elections are bad for America

1. Introduction 2. Theories of Democracy and Representation 3. Voters Prefer to Win Elections 4. Modern Redistricting Principles 5. Beneficial Effects of Packed Districts 6. Addressing Critiques of Packed Districts 7. Conclusion

A New Look at Split‐Ticket Outcomes for House and President: The Comparative Midpoints Model

We argue that conservative districts that go Democratic for the House should be likely to choose a Republican for president, while liberal districts represented by a Republican should be likely to opt for a Democrat for president. We test these and related predictions about split-ticket voting with election data from the eight presidential elections between 1964 and 1992. We show that ideological differences in the estimated location of the districts median voter explains a substantial component of the systematic variation in patterns of split outcomes in this period across districts, but that other factors (e.g., an especially popular incumbent or a particularly poor challenger, the magnitude of presidential election victory, region-specific realignment effects) also play a role.

The Potential Electoral Disadvantages of a Catch-All Party Ideological Variance among Republicans and Democrats in the 50 US States

In two-party competition, the more ideologically concentrated party may be advantaged in that its party median may be closer to the overall median voter than is that of the more dispersed party. Because of party activists and the intermediating effects of party primaries which tend to lead to the selection of candidates near the party median, voters often choose in a general election between candidates with widely divergent views. It follows that a smaller, but more ideologically cohesive, party may find its candidate closer to the overall median voter than is the candidate of the larger party. Such a party should be able to win elections that mere numbers of identifiers would suggest it ought not be able to win. In American politics, it is widely accepted that, in terms of voter ideology, the Democratic Party is more of a catch-all party than the Republicans; i.e. its partisan identifiers are more ideologically dispersed. This insight, however, is based primarily on (a) national-level data and (b) data from a period when Democratic identifiers far outnumbered Republican identifiers and when a very high fraction of southern voters were both Democratic in partisan affiliation and conservative in ideology. We look at American National Election Study data from a 1988-92 panel which uses states as its sampling frame to see the extent to which Republican Party identifiers are more ideologically united than Democratic identifiers in each of the 50 states. Even when we look within individual states, we find that Republicans are considerably more ideologically homogeneous then Democratic identifiers. Thus, for contests fought at the state level, we would expect to see Republicans electorally advantaged relative to their actual number of party identifiers.

The R2=.93: Where then do they differ? Comparing liberal and conservative interest group ratings

Interest groups ratings have long been used by social scientists to distinguish between liberal and conservative members of Congress. It is also well known that ratings by different groups are highly correlated with one another. Here, rather than focusing on the similarities between such measures, we focus on the differences between them. Although the relationship between measures is nearly linear, we find systematic robust differences between ADA and ACU scores.

Trustee Courts and the Judicialization of International Regimes

The article focuses on judicial politics in three international regimes. The courts of these regimes are trustee courts, operating in an environment of judicial supremacy with respect to states. An international trustee court meets three criteria: (1) the court is the authoritative interpreter of the regime’s law; (2) the court’s jurisdiction is compulsory; and (3) it is virtually impossible, in practice, for contracting states to reverse the court’s important rulings. After developing a theory of trusteeship, we turn to how judges have used their powers. Although there is variation, each court has engaged in “majoritarian activism,” producing law that reflects standard practices or a high degree of state consensus but that would not have been adopted by states under unanimity decision rules. Majoritarian activism helps judges to develop the law progressively, to mitigate potential legitimacy problems, and to render efforts at curbing the growth of their authority improbable or ineffective.

Changes in the Location of the Median Voter in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1963-1996

We consider the degree of ideological polarizationwithin and between the parties in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives for the period 1963–1996, using theGroseclose, Levitt and Snyder (1996) adjustment method for ADA and ACU scores to ensure over timecomparability of roll call voting data. We focusespecially on the median House member, since webelieve that change in the median offers a bettermeasure of the impact of the change in party controlthan does changes in the mean roll-call votingscore.Our data analysis makes two general points. First andforemost, when we looked at the change in the locationof the House median voter, we found a dramatic changeafter the Republicans gained a majority in the House in1994. After the Republicans became a majority in theHouse, the ADA median in the House in 1995–1996 was at24, far closer to the Republican median of 4 than tothe Democratic median of 83. The shift in medianfrom 1993–1994 to 1994–1995 involved a change of over 25points in one election – far and away the greatestsingle shift in ideology of the modern era. Incontrast, the mean changed only 1 point overthis same period. Second, for the three decades weinvestigated, we found three historical epochs vis a visthe relative locations of the ADA (or ACU) floormedian and the ADA (or ACU) floor mean in the U.S.House of Representatives – two inflection points in1983 and 1994 which are related to trends in regionalrealignment.

Using statistical sampling to estimate the U.S. Population: The methodological and political debate over Census 2000

wrong (Skerry 1992). To make matters worse, the census must do more than simply tally the number of people in the country; it must also report exactly where each of these people live. By any metric, this is a Herculean task. Indeed, enumerating and fixing geographically 100% of the population without some error is impossible. In this article I outline the plan for Census 2000, define the political debate, and offer an assessment of the plan itself. I argue that deciding how to conduct the census has been, and will continue to be, an inherently political process, and that there are reasonable, scientific arguments against adjusting the census. I became interested in this issue dur-

Modeling the electoral dynamics of party polarization in two-party legislatures

While there are many formal models that generate predictions about polarization, only a handful address the question of how, with no change in electoral rules, levels of polarization can dramatically vary over time, as they have in the US House during 150 years of two-party competition. We propose a model that emphasizes national party constraints on district candidates’ ability to locate at positions far from the national party stance. The model predicts a close relation between tight tethers maintained by the national parties and congressional polarization, suggests implications for political competition, and generates the empirically accurate prediction that partisan polarization and within-party differentiation are negatively correlated. When the tethers of the two parties are not equally strong, the model suggests modifications to the conditional party governance approach and helps explain ideological shift/drift affecting both parties, with the party with the tighter tether moving the other party toward its ideological wake.

Who Wants Electoral Competition and Who Wants to Win

This article employs data gathered in a 2006 national survey to study how the American electorate evaluates a trade-off between competitive elections and winning to implement preferred policies. The results show that voters do not share in the prevailing elite consensus about the overriding virtues of competition. A multilevel model indicates that ideological extremism, partisanship, social trust, and several other individual-level variables have predictable relationships with preferences for winning or competition. In addition, electoral margin in the 2006 congressional district election interacts with support for winning or losing candidates. Voters supporting candidates who are soundly defeated take refuge in competition, whereas those supporting candidates who win decisively view victory as a means of implementing policy preferences. Additional analyses show that preferences for winning and competition influence various forms of political participation. By emphasizing public involvement in policy making, voters expressing a preference to win echo “responsible party government” critiques of the democratic shortcomings of the American political system.