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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
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SYYMJ0
 
Creator Clarke, Andrew
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
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.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Factions
Congress
Party brands
Legislative institutions
 
Contributor Clarke, Andrew
 
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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/