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Do competitive House seats make for ideologues?
It has been suggested that congressional polarization is exacerbated by new districting arrangements that make each House seat safe for either a Democratic or a Republican incumbent. If only these seats were truly competitive, it is said, more centrist legislators would be elected. That seems plausible, but David C. King of Harvard has shown that it is wrong: in the House, the more competitive the district, the more extreme the views of the winner. This odd finding is apparently the consequence of a nomination process dominated by party activists. In primary races, where turnout is low (and seems to be getting lower), the ideologically motivated tend to exercise a preponderance of influence.
Thanks to Eric Rasmusen for the pointer, comments are open. The implication, of course, is that electoral competition is overrated. If we think of more moderate outcomes as better on average (debatable, admittedly), we can view the problem of politics in a new way. Do aggregation mechanisms produce better decisions when individuals feel that less is on the line? Is this the opposite of everything we learned from Anthony Downs?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 18, 2006 at 06:55 AM in Political Science | Permalink
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Comments
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Posted by: Home-Rus at Feb 18, 2006 11:34:21 AM
Isn't the proper argument to abolish primaries? With a multiplicity of candidates who have to be selected with a large minimum number of signatures, there will be no ex ante right or left vetting process. The general election draws the most even distribution of the whole populace and the median voter rule is more likely to apply. You could also do it with a double vote. A preliminary voting round picks the top two candidates who may be from any or even the same party followed by a runoff.
Posted by: nn at Feb 18, 2006 11:44:00 AM
Does this suggest a role for a 3rd party? For myself I think this polarization results in bad policy.
"Isn't the proper argument to abolish primaries?" or partisipation in? I just finished reading "Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki. This makes me think we (our system) might do a good job of picking the best of two canadets in the final election but does a bad job of picking the two final choose.
Posted by: Vincent Davis at Feb 18, 2006 12:45:51 PM
Does it really matter? House members are elected to a body where their positions are going to be aggregated with those held by 434 others. If competitive districts are apt to swing to right-wing ideologues with similar likelihood as they are to left-wing ideologues, then wouldn't they simply cancel one another out? An argument could even be made that the presence of ideologues is important to forward some ideas that are more likely to be favored by those at both ends of the spectrum (i.e., opposition to corporate welfare) than by anyone in the center.
Posted by: R.J. Lehmann at Feb 18, 2006 1:30:26 PM
Maybe the moral of the story is that the law of unintended consequences governs this sphere as well.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at Feb 18, 2006 2:37:21 PM
If electing ideologues mean we were electing people who would put principle over pork and posturing, I'd say we should start electing more of them.
Posted by: DK at Feb 18, 2006 3:21:48 PM
I wonder how many elections he studied, and if he corrected for the increased polarization of the last 20 years or so, as well as the incumbent effect and increased gerrymandering. Specifically, I wonder if he looked at the Senate as a null test against the gerrymandering effect. With few exceptions, the "great" moderates of the Senate have been in swing states.
Having said that, I can postulate a mechanism to explain the result. A close race is going to attract huge amounts of money on both sides. Whence the winning margin? Ground war. How do you attract the workers against thirty some-odd other races? Give the activists what they want.
In '94, a new breed of conservative activist came out. Fed up with being overrun by the liberals, we are fighting back, and demand that our elected officials do so as well. The conservatives took to the streets in 2000 for the first time since....well, the first time ever. (If you don't count the one-a-year Right to Life marches.) But note: I didn't go down until I heard that the left was showing up. Most properly, almost all of the conservative "demonstrations" were _counter_-demonstrations. I think that a signficant part of what we are seeing is simply the result of politics becoming a two-sided affair again.
And DK is absolutely right--you really, really, REALLY want partisan rankor over back-scratching pork-barrelling.
Posted by: Nathan Zook at Feb 20, 2006 10:09:16 AM
One question I would have is to what degree do incumbents moderate over
time... If it does, then the well established electoral advantage of
incumbancy may explain part of the discrepancy.
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