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AbstractLegislators might rely on their partisan base for electoral support—what scholars call their normal vote—or they may cultivate support among nonpartisans through casework or constituency service—what scholars call a personal vote. Previous research frequently argues that legislators face a tradeoff between pursuing the normal vote and a personal vote as traditionally defined, often focusing on resources used by incumbents to build their personal vote. In contrast, we argue that securing the support of partisans and nonpartisans alike should be evaluated based on how a legislator performs in office, and that the so-called normal and personal vote need not be viewed as in conflict. We evaluate our claims using data from state legislative elections following redistricting, focusing on legislative professionalism to measure the resources available to incumbents that they might use to cultivate a personal note.

▪ Abstract  Recent commentary points to clear increases in ideological polarization between the major American political parties. We review the theoretical and empirical literature on party polarization and partisan change. We begin by comparing the current period both to earlier political eras and to theories of partisan change. We argue that in the current period the parties have grown increasingly divided on all the major policy dimensions in American politics—a process that we term conflict extension. We discuss various perspectives on increases in polarization between the parties in government, the parties in the electorate, and the parties' activists, and we consider the causal links between polarization at each of these levels. We consider whether American society itself, and not just the parties and their identifiers, has become increasingly polarized. Finally, we discuss the consequences of growing party polarization for American political life.

Recent commentary points to clear increases in ideological polarization between the major American political parties. We review the theoretical & empirical literature on party polarization & partisan change. We begin by comparing the current period both to earlier political eras & to theories of partisan change. We argue that in the current period the parties have grown increasingly divided on all the major policy dimensions in American politics -- a process that we term conflict extension. We discuss various perspectives on increases in polarization between the parties in government, the parties in the electorate, & the parties' activists, & we consider the causal links between polarization at each of these levels. We consider whether American society itself, & not just the parties & their identifiers, has become increasingly polarized. Finally, we discuss the consequences of growing party polarization for American political life. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractPolitical campaigns are dynamic struggles between candidates to define the informational context for voters. Although much research describes how campaigns unfold or explores their effects on voters, less attention has been given to developing and testing a dynamic theory of candidate interaction during campaigns. In this study, the authors examine three different theories of candidate behavior, testing each using data on the TV advertisements aired in 23 gubernatorial elections held in 2002. The analysis examines both the total advertising efforts and the total negative advertising efforts of candidates in these races, differentiating between candidates based on partisanship, incumbency status, and whether they won or lost. The authors find support for all three theories, demonstrating their complementary nature and the value of analyzing campaigns as dynamic processes.

Political scientists have increasingly viewed party activists as important catalysts for party behavior & change in American politics. Understanding the decision-making norms of these activists should help inform scholars' broader understanding of party performance. We examine the norms of party decision-making expressed by a select group of party activists: delegates to both parties' 2000 national conventions. We focus on how state contextual factors shape the norms these activists hold regarding the proper balance between ideological purity & the pragmatic pursuit of electoral success. The contextual factors we consider include the rules for delegate selection, the financial capacity of state parties, electoral competitiveness between the two parties, party polarization, & state political culture. We find evidence that norms respond as expected to some elements of state party context, but not to others. Tables, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractPolitical scientists have increasingly viewed party activists as important catalysts for party behavior and change in American politics. Understanding the decisionmaking norms of these activists should help inform scholars' broader understanding of party performance. We examine the norms of party decisionmaking expressed by a select group of party activists: delegates to both parties' 2000 national conventions. We focus on how state contextual factors shape the norms these activists hold regarding the proper balance between ideological purity and the pragmatic pursuit of electoral success. The contextual factors we consider include the rules for delegate selection, the financial capacity of state parties, electoral competitiveness between the two parties, party polarization, and state political culture. We find evidence that norms respond as expected to some elements of state party context, but not to others.

In response to widespread concerns about the integrity of research published in scholarly journals, several initiatives have emerged that are promoting research transparency through access to data underlying published scientific findings. Journal editors, in particular, have made a commitment to research transparency by issuing data policies that require authors to submit their data, code, and documentation to data repositories to allow for public access to the data. In the case of the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS) Data Replication Policy, the data also must undergo an independent verification process in which materials are reviewed for quality as a condition of final manuscript publication and acceptance. Aware of the specialized expertise of the data archives, AJPS called upon the Odum Institute Data Archive to provide a data review service that performs data curation and verification of replication datasets. This article presents a case study of the collaboration between AJPS and the Odum Institute Data Archive to develop a workflow that bridges manuscript publication and data review processes. The case study describes the challenges and the successes of the workflow integration, and offers lessons learned that may be applied by other data archives that are considering expanding their services to include data curation and verification services to support reproducible research.

Party activists have played a leading role in "conflict extension"—the polarization of the parties along multiple issue dimensions—in contemporary American politics. We argue that open nomination systems and the ambitious politicians competing within those systems encourage activists with extreme views on a variety of issue dimensions to become involved in party politics, thus motivating candidates to take noncentrist positions on a range of issues. Once that happens, continuing activists with strong partisan commitments bring their views into line with the new candidate agendas, thus extending the domain of interparty conflict. Using cross-sectional and panel surveys of national convention delegates, we find clear evidence for conflict extension among party activists, evidence tentatively suggesting a leading role for activists in partisan conflict extension more generally, and strong support for our argument about change among continuing activists. Issue conversion among activists has contributed substantially to conflict extension and party commitment has played a key role in motivating that conversion.

This article discusses a new data set concerning general elections for state legislative seats from 1967 through 2003 titled State Legislative Election Returns in the United States now available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political & Social Research's (ICPSR). In addition to providing details regarding this new ICPSR dataset, the authors present findings for the three most prominent measures concerning state legislative elections: incumbent reelections percentages, open seat percentages, & the percentage of competitive races. These trends are presented without analysis, but the authors do find that: "incumbents continue to be re-elected at high rates; open seat races are more frequent in state legislatures than in congressional elections, but rise in redistricting years & are higher in multimember than in single member districts; & competition in the form of close election outcomes remain limited to roughly 30 to 40 percent of legislative races across states." These results mirror trends observed in the 1970s & 1980s. In contrast to earlier trends, there was an increase in the number of closely contested races & the number of open seats in 1990 & 1992. Adapted from the source document.

More than 15 years—nine election cycles—have passed since a comprehensive set of state legislative election data was compiled and made available to researchers and practitioners: the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research's (ICPSR) State Legislative Election Returns in the United States dataset (Study #8907) collected by Malcolm Jewell (Jewell 1991) and containing observations from 1967 to 1988. With this hiatus in mind, we set out at various times initially—in three independent efforts (Berry and Carsey; Niemi, and Powell; Snyder)—to gather legislative election data for all states and elections since 1988. In addition, Berry and Carsey (2005) cleaned the original dataset to make it more accurate and usable; their corrections led to the release of a revised ICPSR dataset (Study #3938). The culmination of these efforts is a dataset containing information about general elections for state legislative seats from 1967 to 2003, now available through ICPSR (Study 21480).