Replication Data for: Party Sub-Brands and American Party Factions
Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)
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Title |
Replication Data for: Party Sub-Brands and American Party Factions
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Identifier |
https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SYYMJ0
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Creator |
Clarke, Andrew
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Harvard Dataverse
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Description |
Scholars and pundits have long noted the dominance of the American two-party system, but we know relatively little about new, endogenous institutions that have emerged within the two major parties. I argue that ideological factions provide party sub-brands, which allow legislators to more precisely define their partisan type and capture faction-specific resources. To support this claim, I analyze new data on nine ideological factions in the House of Representatives (1995-2018). I find that (1) faction voting is distinct, suggesting a product ripe for party sub-branding, and (2) joining a faction changes the ideological composition of a candidate's donor base -- conditional on the strength of the faction's institutions. Party sub-branding is effective only when factions possess organizational features that induce coordinated and disciplined position-taking (e.g., whips, PACs, membership restrictions). These results suggest that, even within highly polarized parties, American political ideology is more than a dichotomous choice, and factions target niche markets of political donors as a means of blunting financial instruments of party power.
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Subject |
Social Sciences
Factions Congress Party brands Legislative institutions |
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Contributor |
Clarke, Andrew
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Source |
Lewis, Jeffrey B., Keith Poole, Howard Rosenthal, Adam Boche, Aaron Rudkin, and Luke Sonnet (2019). Voteview: Congressional Roll-Call Votes Database. https://voteview.com/ (accessed: August 28, 2018) Bonica, Adam. 2016. Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections: Public version 2.0 [Computer file]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries. https://data.stanford.edu/dime Volden, Craig, and Alan E. Wiseman. 2014. Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers. Cambridge University Press. Pettigrew, Stephen, Karen Owen, and Emily Wanless. 2014. “U.S. House Primary Election Results (1956-2010).” https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/26448. FEC 2012 Election Results. https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2012/federalelections2012.shtml Fowler, Anthony, and Andrew B. Hall. 2012. “Conservative Vote Probabilities: An Easier Method for Summarizing Roll Call Data.” Working Paper. https://voices.uchicago.edu/fowler/ research/ |
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