Exploring elites’ first political memories: A case study of presidential electors

Political elites provide a unique perspective on political socialization. By examining these individuals’ experiences and viewpoints, scholars have an opportunity to evaluate methods to increase political engagement among the mass public. This paper undertakes such an exploration using a 2013 mail survey of Electoral College members, specifically considering responses to an open-ended question about electors’ first political memories, accounting for respondents’ age, partisanship, and gender. This study finds that elites’ earliest political memories often involve electoral—particularly presidential—politics and note these findings’ implications for political socialization scholars.     

A sign of the times? Weak and strong polarization in the U.S. Congress, 1973–2016

Claims that the United States Congress is (becoming more) polarized are widespread, but what is polarization? In this paper, I draw on notions of intergroup relations to distinguish two forms. Weak polarization occurs when relations between the polarized groups are merely absent, while strong polarization occurs when the relations between the polarized groups are negative. I apply the Stochastic Degree Sequence Model to data on bill co-sponsorship in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, from 1973 (93rd session) to 2016 (114th session) to infer a series of signed networks of political relationships among legislators, which I then use to answer two research questions. First, can the widely reported finding of increasing weak polarization in the U.S. Congress be replicated when using a statistical model to make inferences about when positive political relations exist? Second, is the (increasing) polarization observed in the U.S. Congress only weak polarization, or is it strong polarization? I find that both chambers exhibit both weak and strong polarization, that both forms are increasing, and that they are structured by political party affiliation. However, I also find these trends are unrelated to which party holds the majority in a chamber.     

We trust in government,just not in yours: Race,partisanship, and political trust, 1958–2012

Although it is generally accepted that political trust is reflective of satisfaction with the performance of the incumbent administration, this is only considered true for White Americans. Because their trust reflects a larger discontent with the political system, Black Americans, it is held, do not respond in the same way in the short term. This argument has yet to be tested with over-time data. Time matters. Not only does the race gap in trust change over time but the impact of partisanship and political winning is, by definition, time-dependent. The results of an analysis of the 1958–2012 American National Election Studies data show that Black Americans and White Americans are equally likely to tie short-term performance to trust in government. However, the relationship between partisanship and political trust and, therefore, system discontent, clearly differs for the two groups. Aggregate models that do not take race-partisan sub-group differences into account will therefore be misleading.     

奥巴马内阁、党派性与中美贸易发展走势

当前,美国贸易政策的制定过程中充斥着浓厚的党派性色彩,两党对待贸易议题的态度针锋相对,这使得美国贸易自由化的进程严重受阻.刚刚宣誓就职的民主党总统立足未稳,党派纷争愈演愈烈,金融危机又对美国经济造成了巨大的冲击,在此背景下,自由贸易更是受到了前所未有的挑战.在未来,中关双方只有通过友好的对话来解决双边贸易中存在的问题,积极诚恳地审视自身经济政策的缺陷,双边贸易才能走上健康发展之路,为两国经济发展做出应有的贡献.     

Political generations and partisanship in the UK, 1964–1997

Summary. Political partisanship is often claimed to be influenced by generational and life-cycle processes, with both being cited as the factor that is responsible for higher levels of Conservative identifications among older voters. Given the existence of over-time change it is difficult to assess the validity of these claims as even with repeated survey data any model is underidentified. This paper uses smoothed additive models to isolate and examine the non-linear component of the generational effect. Some identifying assumptions are presented to try to assess the extent to which linear aging or generational processes are responsible for the increased Conservatism of the elderly. The advantage of the smoothed additive models is their ability to highlight non-linear effects, however, and this paper shows that regardless of linear trends people who entered the electorate during Conservative Parliaments are more likely to be Conservative partisan identifiers many years later. The introduction of a multiplicative term linking age to period effects supports this hypothesis by showing that younger people are more susceptible to the influence of period effects.