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- Title
How Strong Should Our Party Be? Party Member Preferences Over Party Cohesion.
- Authors
Volden, Craig; Bergman, Elizabeth
- Abstract
The article examines under what circumstances would legislators in the United States unite to vote as a cohesive partisan bloc as members preferences play such a strong role. It suggest that party unity can affect an outcomes toward the party center and can limit shifts toward the opposing party and that may best serve individual members under some conditions. Improving upon Krehbiel's pivotal politics model, it develops a model for generalized-partial equilibrium results and further analyzed it through computer simulations it takes into account a number of conditions that may promote party cohesion. The models prediction was tested and test its predictions against data on party unity in the U.S. senate over a century that is from 1879 to 1996. The data analyses show strong support for this theory of endogenous choice of party pressure. It concludes that party unity is endogenously chosen when members find that by uniting they can serve their constituents best. It further says that conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans are relatively averse to partisan pressures.
- Subjects
UNITED States; UNITED States legislators; UNITED States. Congress; POLITICAL parties; UNITED States Congressional voting; PARTY discipline; PRESSURE group members; LEGISLATIVE voting; UNITED States political parties
- Publication
Legislative Studies Quarterly, 2006, Vol 31, Issue 1, p71
- ISSN
0362-9805
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3162/036298006X201733