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June 25, 2007

Political Science Abstract of the Day

Larry Bartels: Economic Inequality and Political Representation:

I examine the differential responsiveness of U.S. senators to the preferences of wealthy, middle-class, and poor constituents. My analysis includes broad summary measures of senators’ voting behavior as well as specific votes on the minimum wage, civil rights, government spending, and abortion. In almost every instance, senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents, while the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution have no apparent statistical effect on their senators’ roll call votes. Disparities in representation are especially pronounced for Republican senators, who were more than twice as responsive as Democratic senators to the ideological views of affluent constituents. These income-based disparities in representation appear to be unrelated to disparities in turnout and political knowledge and only weakly related to disparities in the extent of constituents’ contact with senators and their staffs.

And it should go without saying that the more focused politicians are on the preferences of their affluent constituents, the more their legislation will entrench and augment inequality, further erasing the preferences of the poor and middle class from consideration. That said, I would like to remind people that in 2001, we had a terrorist attack, and there's a war going on, and everything is different now, and there's really no time for procedural niceties like listening to the bottom third of the country.

June 25, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

Wait- so you are saying it wasn't a brilliant Machivellian move on Edwards part to focus on poverty? But that can't be true. I can think up a least 5 other possible scenarios that means its not. Perhaps the poor do not want governmental help. Have you thought of that? Maybe ignoring them is the best way to help them out?

Posted by: akaison | Jun 25, 2007 9:41:53 AM

Is the use of the first person normal in Econ papers? Coming from a hard science background, I've got to say it drives me absolutely crazy to see so many sentences starting with "I" and "My".

Posted by: Midwest Product | Jun 25, 2007 9:46:41 AM

Midwest product,

Personal pronouns aren't used even in abstracts describing the research contained within?

Posted by: Stephen | Jun 25, 2007 10:02:07 AM

Funny that, Midwest. I read a contra-argument put forth by Chad Orzel (a physicist) at Uncertain Principles. Myths of Science Writing: "Myth 1: First-person pronouns are forbidden in scientific writing." Frankly, he makes lots of sense. The charge of using tortured third person pronouns is typically levied against writers in the humanities, not science writers. You can check it out at http://tinyurl.com/2ezyep

Posted by: mk | Jun 25, 2007 10:21:13 AM

Passive voice seems to me to be the standard in social-science academic writing - the stuff just appears from a mystical cloud.

The research cited also seems somewhat unusual in that this just can't be a newly discovered set of facts and patterns. Has it ever been different, and in what ways?

We have an electoral system that depends on people with interests giving money to those who will take care of their interests. How this is different from a bribe is not so clear. It's not so clear who first uttered the pithy saying we know so well: the best government that money can buy

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Jun 25, 2007 10:30:00 AM

Sorry, I didn't actually intend for this to turn into a full-blown threadjack. I generally prefer the passive voice because it emphasizes the research rather than the researcher. I dug up the link to that Orzel piece (http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2007/05/myths_of_science_writing.php) and it is indeed well worth the read, thanks.

While I obviously need to back away from my "absolutely no first person ever" stance, I still see no reason for it to appear in the abstract Ezra cited above.

Posted by: Midwest Product | Jun 25, 2007 11:21:03 AM

I really like the way my navel looks.

Posted by: akaison | Jun 25, 2007 11:35:07 AM

I've got an even better abstract:

There is much concern among pundits and political observers that incivility undermines our electoral process. Yet we have little evidence that actually documents whether incivility has such pernicious effects. This article seeks to advance our understanding of the influence of incivility on the electorate. We argue that three dimensions are central to understanding both the perceptions and effects of different types of campaign messages: tone (negative versus positive); civility (civil versus uncivil); and focus (issue versus trait-based message content). Using an experimental manipulation on a large national sample that examines these three dimensions, we find that uncivil attacks in campaigns do not appear to be as worrisome as its detractors fear. While uncivil messages in general—and uncivil trait-based messages in particular—are usually seen by the public as being less fair, less informative, and less important than both their civil negative and positive counterparts, they are no more likely to lead to detrimental effects among the public. In fact, incivility appears to have some modest positive consequences for the political engagement of the electorate. These findings are important, since attacks and counterattacks will continue to shape the American political landscape.

--"Beyond Negativity: The Effects of Incivility on the Electorate", American Journal of Political Science, 51.1, pp.1-16.

Posted by: zzedar | Jun 25, 2007 11:58:01 AM

This is sort of a perfect example of what i wrote in response to another thread... this guy did research to find out that... politicians listen more to rich people than poor people, and Republicans listen more to rich people an less to poor people than Democrats.

WOW. talk about breaking ground. Maybe in his next paper he will show that black people vote overwhelmingly democratic, and that democratic politicians are more likely to reflect the concerns of African Americans in their legislation.

Posted by: IMU | Jun 25, 2007 12:36:41 PM

Bartels should have simply named his paper "Class and Power"

I will just quote the Man Max Sawicky

"1. There is no 'we.' Never was. Policy is of, by, and for elites." ...Max

Hard to internalize that one, cause they always throw their dogs a bone & table scraps, and we call it successful progressivism. Yet the inequality charts show it is nothing. Parliamentary socialism is a loser.

Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jun 25, 2007 1:38:05 PM

If we’re thinking about ways to mitigate the problem – an idle exercise, I know – it matters why legislators are so largely the instruments of a class. To the extent it’s because of campaign financing, there’s one solution. But even if campaign financing weren’t an issue, the rich are more organized than the majority, & can lobby more effectively, & different, more far-reaching reforms are needed to address that. Rich people largely control the disposition of private resources, & thus the wellbeing of the polity, so politicians have reason to be especially attentive to their views & behavior. And beyond all that, the rich (increasingly) just have more cultural authority than the majority, are afforded more respect, taken more seriously. It’s an empirical question what happens to democratic culture & institutions when everyone accepts increasing economic inequality wellbeing & dependence on & deference to authority in the private sphere.

Posted by: K | Jun 25, 2007 4:38:57 PM

Well IMU, if I may defend my field for a minute here, let me explain why this finding is both important and policy relevant. As progressives, we are always trying to find ways to improve the lot of the less fortunate. Generally, we feel that the odds are stacked against the poor for a variety of institutional disadvantages. One consistently cited advantage is the wealthy's superior access to legislators, policymakers, bureaucrats and other staffers through campaign contributions and the like. Bartels finds only a weak correlation here, which is telling. Second, their voting records are not related to turnout OR political knowledge. This is an interesting, if somewhat depressing, finding. Simply increasing the turnout amongst poor voters or increasing political knowledge in the electorate at-large (both popular solutions in progressive electoral strategies) does NOT seem to improve democratic representation of this disadvantaged group. That informs both political strategy and policy recommendations.

Posted by: Augie | Jun 25, 2007 10:24:31 PM

Anyone actually look at his methodology for this? Fricking joke.

Posted by: Alex | Jun 26, 2007 9:23:01 AM

Alex, how is it a joke? I only glanced at the paper, but it seems to me to be a pretty straightforward combination of public opinion and legislative voting research.

Posted by: Elm | Jun 26, 2007 3:21:19 PM

I'm not sure folks have noticed one crucially important element in the design of this study: senators' party affiliation is included in the model as an *independent* variable.

Among other things, this means that what's being estimated here is not the relationship between each senator's votes and the opinions of his/her constituents, but rather the relationship between how each senator's votes differ from the party average and the opinions of their consitutents. This is not the same thing AT ALL.

In particular, it rules out -- by assumption! -- the possibility that constituents might possibly express their policy preferences by electing senators of particular parties.

I think it's a more accurate reading of this study to say that it suggests that the influence of lower income consitutents on senators' votes operates through party selection (pro-life voters tend to elect Republicans), and that senators *deviations* from party norms are correlated with the opinions of their high-income constituents (which isn't terribly surprising, since they are in fact one of their own high-income constituents).

Posted by: johnchx | Jun 27, 2007 12:33:57 PM

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