Papers by Aismyfirstname Wuffle
Public Choice, May 1, 1988
propose a rational choice model of voter turnout which they test with data from the 1976 Presiden... more propose a rational choice model of voter turnout which they test with data from the 1976 Presidential election. We extend and generalize that model to cover a wide variety of forms of electoral participation including working on a campaign, wearing campaign buttons, and talking to others about the campaign. We find that voters who see a difference between the candidates, with one candidate positively evaluated and the other negatively, are roughly twice as likely to participate in high involvement electoral activities as are those who are alienated from or indifferent to the candidates.
Is the Senate More Liberal than the House? Another Look
Legislative Studies Quarterly, May 1, 1991
Samuel Kernell wrote in 1973 that "conventional wisdom claims that the Senate is more libera... more Samuel Kernell wrote in 1973 that "conventional wisdom claims that the Senate is more liberal than the House." This greater liberalism has been attributed to both institutional and demographic differences in the constituency base of each house. Confirming an hypothesis of Kerell (1973), we argue that the party composition of each branch is a central determinant of the relative liberalism of the two branches. However, even when party and demographic variables are controlled, we find a small but statistically significant institutional effect-with the Senate on average the more liberal body from 1960 to 1989. This finding is further confirmed when we examine data on ADA scores of representatives and senators from the states that elect a single representative-states for which House and senatorial constituency are identical. In these states, we find that Democratic senators are on average slightly to the left of Democratic representatives and Republican senators are also on average slightly to the left of Republican representatives.
Political Gerrymandering and the Courts
Strategic Vote Delay in the U. S. House of Representatives
Legislative Studies Quarterly, Feb 1, 1995
This book integrates spatial and behavioral perspectives-in a word, those of the Rochester and Mi... more This book integrates spatial and behavioral perspectives-in a word, those of the Rochester and Michigan schools-into a unified theory of voter choice and party strategy. The theory encompasses both policy and nonpolicy factors, effects of turnout, voter discounting of party promises, expectations of coalition government, and party motivations based on policy as well as office. Optimal (Nash equilibrium) strategies are determined for alternative models for presidential elections in the United States and France, and for parliamentary elections in Britain and Norway. These polities cover a wide range of electoral rules, numbers of major parties, and governmental structures. The analyses suggest that the more competitive parties generally take policy positions that come close to maximizing their electoral support, and that these vote-maximizing positions correlate strongly with the mean policy positions of their supporters.
Modeling Negative Campaigning
American Political Science Review, Mar 1, 1995
Negative campaigning is an important aspect of campaign competition but plays little or no role i... more Negative campaigning is an important aspect of campaign competition but plays little or no role in existing models of campaigns. Within the context of plurality elections for a single office we model the incentives that affect the use of negative campaigning. Under simplifying but still quite general assumptions we show a number of results, including the following key conclusions: (1) for two-candidate competition the front-runner will engage in more positive and less negative campaigning than the opponent; (2) in a three-candidate contest with one candidate clearly trailing by a large margin and playing mainly a spoiler role, that candidate will only engage in positive campaigning; and (3) in any three-candidate contest, no candidate engages in negative campaigning against the weaker of his two opponents, so that to the extent there is negative campaigning, it will be directed against the front-runner or it will come from the front-runner. These results have direct empirical applications to multicandidate primaries and nonpartisan contests and can provide insight into recent general elections as well.
Extending the <i>Laakso-Taagepera Index</i> to integrate both party and ethnicity
Party Politics, May 22, 2022
We show how to extend the Laakso-Taagepera measure of the effective number of parties so as to in... more We show how to extend the Laakso-Taagepera measure of the effective number of parties so as to incorporate both party and ethnicity in a way that allows both ethnic-specific, party-specific, and composite measures that we refer to as extended L-T indices. While the aim of this article is methodological, we also illustrate our approach with U.S. two-party data from presidential elections, using two-group, three-group, and five-group categorizations of ethnicities to show how party ethnicization in that country has grown since 1952. For comparison, and to show the generality of our approach to situations with more than two parties, we present data from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine), where we have three ethnic groups but also more than two parties.
Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965- 1990
Journal of Southern History, Nov 1, 1995
Social Science Research Network, 2018
In League of Women Voters et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al. (2018), the Pennsylvania ... more In League of Women Voters et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al. (2018), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down that state's congressional plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. It did so entirely on state law grounds after a three-judge federal court had rejected issuing a preliminary injunction against the plan. The aim of this essay is to examine the implications of LWV for future partisan gerrymandering litigation. In particular, we look toward the applicability of the Pennsylvania court's approach to other potential partisan gerrymandering challenges brought under state law, especially those in the twelve states whose state constitutions have provisions essentially identical to the one relied upon by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and in states with similar provisions. We pay particular attention to how the Court made use of the expert witness testimony in the case, relying on some of it, while rejecting or critiquing the applicability of other elements, since such a discussion can inform future litigation in state courts drawing on the LWV opinion for ideas. In our concluding discussion we contrast the criteria used to evaluate partisan gerrymandering by this court with those used by federal courts, and we look at how it may impact the decisions of legislators about line drawing in 2020.
Social Science Research Network, 2018
In League of Women Voters v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2018) the Pennsylvania Supreme Court s... more In League of Women Voters v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2018) the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down as a "severe and durable" partisan gerrymander the congressional map drawn by Republicans in 2011 and used in elections from 2012-2016. It did so entirely on state law grounds after a three-judge federal court had rejected issuing a preliminary injunction against the plan. After Pennsylvania failed to enact a lawful remedy plan of its own (due to total disagreement as to how to proceed between the newly elected Democratic governor and the still Republican-controlled legislature), the Court then ordered into place for the 2018 election a map of its own drawn for it by a court-appointed consultant. In a split court, the Court map was endorsed only by judges with Democratic affiliations. Here we compare and contrast the 2011 and 2018 maps in terms of a variety of proposed metrics for detecting partisan gerrymandering. For further comparison purposes, we examine six proposed remedy plans. These include the remedy map proposed by the Republican legislators and that proposed by the Democratic governor, along with four other maps drawn conforming either entirely or substantially to what are often referred to as "good government" standards, and with no election outcome or party registration data used in the creation of three of them. We argue that the 2011 map was a blatant and undisguised pro-Republican gerrymander, while the 2018 remedy map proposed by Republican legislators was a covert gerrymander (what we refer to as a stealth gerrymander); but that, as we would expect, the 2018 court drawn map can not be classified as a gerrymander. Replication Material: The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at . Jonathan Cervas is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at UCI with an interest in elections and skills in geographic information systems. Together with Grofman, Cervas prepared the Remedial maps in service to the U.S.
PS Political Science & Politics, 1986
Election Law Journal, Dec 1, 2010
Center for the Study of Democracy, Jun 26, 2009
Questions about the determinants of faculty salary are of general interest. 1 Of particular conce... more Questions about the determinants of faculty salary are of general interest. 1 Of particular concern are issues of the relationship between seniority and compensation, gender and compensation, and research performance and compensation. Here we take advantage of data involving seven departments of political science within the University of California (UC) system where we are able to combine publicly available salary information with lifetime citation counts and other individual level data from the Masuoka, Grofman and Feld (2007) study of faculty at Ph.D. granting political science departments in the United States. 2 While our study is limited to the determinants of faculty salaries in political science departments within the UC system, we believe that our results have broader implications. How might we predict the relative weight of different factors in the determination of base salaries? There are competing theoretical expectations as to what we should find. The bureaucratic model suggests that, since "performance" is at least in part a "contested concept" within academia, 3 and because the University of California (UC) system is a large bureaucracy, the system may cope with salary determination with fixed rules that establish a time-based ladder of salary increments that is uniformly applied across all campuses. Indeed, such rules exist in the Academic Personnel system of the university. To the extent that we have bureaucratic rigidity, we would expect a very strong correlation between salary and years since Ph.D. At the same time, the UC and the State of California greatly value the quality and strong national reputations of the faculty and their research programs. Thus, to the extent that there is flexibility in salary determination for base salaries, and concern about recruiting and keeping first-rate faculty, we expect the administration at the various campuses to respond to both "equity" and "market" considerations by taking performance factors into account, not merely seniority. This should show up in our data as a relatively high degree of variance in the pay levels of those with similar dates of Ph.D. Another theoretical concern is with how we best predict the nature of the differences in salary determination across the various UC campuses. 4 One possibility is that the existence of system-wide norms and a system wide salary ladder common to all campuses will yield very high congruence across campuses in the factors affecting salaries. 5 A second possibility is that those departments with higher national visibility will, controlling for other variables, pay less because they compensate their faculty in non-monetary ways, e.g., by providing them the prestige associated with faculty status at a top department, top graduate students, or other, intellectual benefits. A third possibility is that, after controlling for other variables, top departments pay more than the less visible departments. This may occur if the top departments
Lessons of Athenian Democracy: Editor's Introduction
PS Political Science & Politics, Sep 1, 1993
First, the good news: 1992-93 is the 2500th anniversary of the birth of democracy. It was in 507-... more First, the good news: 1992-93 is the 2500th anniversary of the birth of democracy. It was in 507-508 B.C. that the reforms of Cleisthenes took place in Athens. In a world seemingly devoid of much to cheer about, here's an excuse to celebrate.Now, for the quibbles. If Cleisthenes is so important, why have I never heard of him? Moreover, why should I celebrate Athenian democracy when I know from both Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers that it was really mob rule, an example to be avoided at all costs in shaping a constitution for a republic in search of stability and good government? Hasn't Thucydides taught us that the fickleness of the Athenian populace led to repeated Athenian military disasters after the death of Pericles, the Athenian “first citizen” whom Thucydides sees as having ruled over Athens while permitting the masses the illusion that they were in control? Wasn't it an Athenian people's jury that forced the world's greatest philosopher to drink hemlock? Perhaps even more importantly, isn't it (politically) incorrect to call Athens a democracy? How can a militaristic society built on the backs of slaves and the revenues of imperialism, in which women couldn't own property or participate in politics, ever be something to celebrate?!
PS Political Science & Politics, 1985
South Carolina Law Review, 1984
Cumulative voting, a concept introduced more than one hundred years ago, is widely used in corpor... more Cumulative voting, a concept introduced more than one hundred years ago, is widely used in corporate elections in the United States." Currently, approximately twenty states require and thirteen states permit its use in corporate elections. 2 The purpose of cumulative voting is to permit minority interests to gain proportional representation on the board of directors roughly commensurate with their share of ownership. In contrast, under straight majority voting, a simple majority of the shareholders is able to elect the entire board of directors while the minority finds itself unrepresented. 3
PS Political Science & Politics, Jul 1, 2007
Wittman and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and corrections. We are also indeb... more Wittman and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and corrections. We are also indebted to the bibliographic assistance of Clover Behrend-Gethard, and to the inspiration of Hans-Dieter Klingemann's pioneering work.
Springer eBooks, 2011
except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection wit... more except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.
PS Political Science & Politics, 2007
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Papers by Aismyfirstname Wuffle