BOOKS
ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION: Political Ideologies and Political Parties in America (more details below) Cambridge University Press
The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform
2008. With Marty Cohen, David Karol and John Zaller (University of Chicago Press)
Request replication materials.
Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box.
Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.
- Ryan Lizza (The New Yorker): "Life of The Party: Can the G.O.P. save itself?"
- Greg Marx (Columbia Journalism Review): "How to Understand the Invisible Primary"
- Greg Marx (Columbia Journalism Review): "Q&A: Poli Sci Blogger John Sides"
- Ezra Klein (The Washington Post): "The Party is Deciding"
- Kevin Drum (Mother Jones): "Rick Perry and the Invisible Primary"
- Andrew Sullivan (The Dish): "Watch the Endorsements"
- Chris Hayes (MSNBC): "Up With Chris Hayes"
- Jonathan Chait (New York Magazine): "Does the GOP Elite Still Decide? It's Debatable"
- Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight): "Pondering Perry's Electability"
- Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight): "Romney Leads Endorsement Race"
- Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight): "A `Radical Centrist' View on Election Forecasting"
- Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight): "Did Gingrich's Win Break the Paradigm?"
- John Sides (FiveThirtyEight): "History May Point Toward More Conservative G.O.P. Nominee"
- Mark Blumenthal (Huffington Post): "GOP Power Outsiders Souring on Perry, Warming to Romney"
- Mark Blumenthal (Huffington Post): Rick Perry Polls Best On Electability, But Do Voters Really Care?"
- Mark Blumenthal (Huffington Post): "Mitt Romney Still Preferred To Newt Gingrich By Power Outsiders"
- Mark Blumenthal (Huffington Post): "HuffPost-Patch GOP Power Outsiders: Bachmann, Perry Gaining The Most Ground In Presidential Race"
- Larry Sabato (The Wall Street Journal): "Do Endorsements Matter?"
- The Economist: "Dead Man Moonwalking"
- Reihan Salam (National Review Online): "Hans Noel on the Invisible Primary"
- Pierre-Louis Rolle (Mediapart): Rick Santorum dégage la piste pour Mitt Romney
- Brad Plumer (WonkBlog): "Why Christie's Endorsement of Romney Matters"
- Jay Cost (The Weekly Standard): "Welcome to the Invisible Primary"
- Henry Farrell (The Monkey Cage): "What is a Party in American Politics?"
- Matt Yglesias: "The GOP's Tough Decision."
- Mark (Hot Air): "The Invisible Primary"
- Patrick Appel (Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Beast): "The Invisible Primary"
- Jonathan Bernstein (A Plain Blog About Politics): "Parties and Nominations"
- Jonathan Ladd (CNN.com): "What's fueling Romney's Success?"
- Seth Masket (Enik Rising): "Party Insiders and the Invisible Primary"
- John Sides (The Monkey Cage): "The Importance of the Invisible Primary"
- John Sides (The Monkey Cage): "A Cranky Reader and I Discuss the 2012 GOP Primary."
- Andrew Therriault (CSDI): "The Importance of Competent Campaigns"
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
A Theory of Political Parties: Groups, Policy Demands and Nominations in American Politics
2012. With Kathleen Bawn, Marty Cohen, David Karol, Seth Masket and John Zaller. Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 10. No. 3.
Tea Party Influence: A Story of Activists and Elites
2012. With Michael Bailey and Jonathan Mummolo. American Politics Research.
Which Long Coalition: The Creation of the Anti-Slavery Coalition
forthcoming. Party Politics.
The Coalition Merchants: The Ideological Roots of the Civil Rights Realignment
2012. Journal of Politics Vol. 74, No. 1, pp. 156-173.
Over the course of the twentieth century, the Democratic and Republican parties have reversed positions on racial issues. This reversal is credited to a variety of factors, chief among them strategic decisions on the part of party leaders competing for votes. An original dataset of the opinions expressed by political thinkers in leading magazines and newspapers is used to develop a measure of ideological positions parallel to NOMINATE scores for members of Congress. Results show that the current ideological pattern, in which racial and economic liberalism are aligned together, emerged among political intellectuals at least 20 years before it appeared in congressional voting. The finding is consistent with the view that ideology shapes party coalitions.
Serving Two Masters: Using Referenda to Assess the Relationship between Voters and Legislators
2012. (Available online March 2, 2011.) With Seth Masket. Political Research Quarterly.
The "Unfriending Problem": The Consequences of Friendship Attrition for Causal Estimates of Social Influence
2011. (Available online June16, 2011.) With Brendan Nyhan. Social Networks. Vol. 33. No. 3. 211-218
- Barbara R. Jasney (Science): "Editor's Choice: Not Contagious After All?"
- Dave Johns (Slate): "Disconnected? We've heard that obesity and divorce can be passed from one person to another. Critics now wonder how the 'social contagion' studies ever passed peer review."
- Gina Koleta (The New York Times): "Catching Obesity From Friends May Not Be So Easy
Cooperative Party Factions in American Politics
2010. With Gregory Koger and Seth Masket. American Politics Research: Vol. 38 No. 1 pp. 33-53.
Partisan Webs: Information Exchange and Party Networks
2009. With Gregory Koger and Seth Masket. British Journal of Political Science: Vol. 39 pp. 633–6537.
EDITED ARTICLES
Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don't
2010. The Forum. Volume 8, Issue 3, Pages 1-19, ISSN (Online) 1540-8884, DOI: 10.2202/1540-8884.1393, October 2010
- Ezra Klein
- Brendan Nyhan: "Hans Noel on the contributions of political science"
- Seth Masket (Enik Rising): "How To Teach Political Science"
- Enik Rising: "Two Must-Reads"
- ProgressToolbox: "Things Political Scientists Know"
- Jon Bernstein (The New Republic): "Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don't"
Review of The Dynamics of Two-Party Politics: Party Structures and the Management of Competition, by Alan Ware
Political Science Quarterly Vol. 125, No. 3. pp. 515-517.
Methodological Issues in the Study of Political Parties 2010. The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups. L. Sandy Maisel and Jeffrey M. Berry, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 57-76
Listening to the Coalition Merchants: Measuring the Intellectual Influence of Academic Scribblers
2007. The Forum: Vol. 5 : No. 3, Article 7.
Political Parties in Rough Weather
2007. With Marty Cohen, David Karol and John Zaller. The Forum. Vol.5, No.4, Article 3.
The Invisible Primary in Presidential Nominations, 1980-2004
2007. With Marty Cohen, David Karol and John Zaller
in The Making of the Presidential Candidates, 2008. William Mayer, ed. Rowman and Littlefield.
Pols
or Polls? The Real Driving Force Behind Presidential Nominations
2003. With Marty Cohen, David Karol and John Zaller Brookings
Review. Summer 2003 Vol.21 No.3 pp. 36-39
SELECT OTHER RESEARCH
A Theory of Political Parties
(With Kathleen Bawn, Marty Cohen, David Karol, Seth Makset and John Zaller)
This paper is under review.
+MEDIA COVERAGE
This paper offers a theory of political parties that places interest groups and activists at its center. This is a departure from standard theories, which have politicians at the center. As we theorize them, parties no longer compete to win elections by giving voters the policies voters want. Rather, as coalitions of intense policy demanders, they have their own agendas and aim to get voters to go along.
Don't Look to a Third Party Candidate
2011. with Seth Masket. op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. August 11, 2011.
A Social Networks Analysis of Internal Party Cleavages in Presidential Nominations, 1972-2008
Presidential nomination politics has often revealed schisms within the party coalitions. But are these divisions long-standing or temporary? Do they reflect a chaotic party or a coordinating one? I use a dataset of more than 8000 presidential nomination endorsements from 1972 to 2008 to identify the network of support in the nominating party, as well as the key players in that dynamic. I then apply social networks analysis techniques, including exponential random graph models, to explain those networks. Analysis gives insight into who is important, what groups are stable, and what characteristics lead them to act together
From George McGovern
to John Kerry: State-level models of presidential primaries, 1972-2004
(With Marty Cohen and John Zaller) (Presented at APSA 2003 and MPSA 2004, APSA 2010)
After the 1968 Democratic convention, a series of reforms were put into practice for presidential nominations that fundamentally changed the way we nominate candidates for that office. Initial analysis of the process (see esp. Bartels 1982) suggested that dynamic factors such as momentum dominate the process. We apply a set of common models of both dynamic and static factors to all presidential primary contests since the McGovern-Fraser reforms. We attempt to detect momentum effects but also the effects of ideological positioning, money, media and elite endorsements. Our model also accounts for the multi-candidate nature of these races in ways that earlier work has not. We discover that the notion of momentum has changed considerably since Carter first demonstrated its impact, and that today it tends to favor the insider rather than helping unknowns leap to prominence.
Without a Watchdog:
The Effect of Quality News Coverage on Congressional Polarization
(With Marty Cohen and John Zaller) (Presented at APSA 2003, WPSA 2004, APSA 2004)
We consider the relationship between quality media coverage of members of Congress and the nature of representation. We find that were media coverage is of "high quality" (using a variety of measures), voters appear to exercise a delegate model of representation, in which MC's voting behavior closely maps constituent preferences. But where coverage is poor, voters may not have the information needed to hold MC's accountable, and those members operate under a responsible party government model, in which MC's voting behavior follows the party line. We test several implications of the mechanisms implied by this explanation of the empirical pattern.
BOOK PROJECT: THE COALITION MERCHANTS
The following 5 papers are parts of a developing book project, based on my dissertation, on the relationship between ideology and party coalitions. That manuscript is under review.
The Coalition Merchants: Testing the Power of Ideas on the Civil Rights Movement.
(A version of paper has been published in Journal of Politics)
Do ideas matter in party agendas? I test the proposition that the way that ideologies organize issues exerts an influence on the way that party leaders construct coalitions. Over the course of the 20th century, the Democratic and Republican parties have reversed positions on racial issues. This reversal is credited to a variety of factors, chief among them strategic decisions on the part of party leaders competing for votes. Using an original dataset of the opinions expressed by political thinkers in leading magazines and newspapers, I develop a measure of ideological positions parallel to NOMINATE scores for members of Congress. With this measure, I trace the transformation of ideological attitudes toward race. I show that the reversal of the Democrats and Republicans in congressional voting is preceded by a similar reversal, several decades earlier, of liberals and conservatives in the intellectual sphere.
Ideology, Party and the Creation of the Anti-Slavery Coalition
(This paper won the POP award for best paper at the APSA meeting 2005, and has been published in Party Politics)
How should we understand the relationship between ideology and party? Ideology may be thought of as a description of a party's agenda, created to justify its electoral coalition. Or ideology may be created separately and pushed on party leaders, perhaps against their interests. Distinguishing these processes requires distinguishing purely ideological opinions from the partisan behavior of elected politicians. This paper develops such a model and applies it to the case of partisan change on slavery. Intellectuals in 1850 divided into two camps over slavery and the other major issues of the day at a time when slavery cross-cut the two parties in Congress. The ideological division matches one that develops in Congress a decade later, suggesting that the parties responded not just to electoral incentives, but also to this elite division. The ideology was accepted, even though it undermined longstanding attempts to hold together intersectional alliances.
Interpreting Ideal Points with Help from the Ideological Discourse.
• Dimensions of multidimensional scaling models have no natural interpretation.
• I merge data from outside Congress to help interpret the space inside Congress.
• Two not-quite-orthogonal dimensions seem to be ideology and party.
• Relationship of these dimensions changes over time.
Creative Synthesis: A Model of Reflective Equilibrium and Ideology Formation
This paper offers a model of ideological formation that combines psychological predispositions and rational self-interest. I argue that by modeling the way in which political thinkers reason from first principles, and how they fail to ignore their own psychological and interest-based biases, we can explain ideological development. A model of long coalitions (Bawn 1999) provides a structure for people's interests and their psychological traits, and a model of reason (Rawls 2001) provides a method of combing those interests and traits into an ideology.
Multinomial Ideal Point Estimation: When the Decision to Speak is as Important as What You Say
(Presented at PolMeth 2007)
This paper works with a theoretical model that implies the one way a person might manifest their ideology is through declining to take a position, and another way is through arguing with other co-ideologues. Thus the theoretical model implies an empirical model that allows abstention to serve as a third category. It also implies that taking the pro and con position on an issue may both be associated with the same ideological pole, while the other pole avoids the issue. I adapt an Item-Response Model to account for the case where abstention is a third category, not clearly between favoring and opposing a policy. The multinomial response lets any of these three responses: pro, con or abstain, be associated with either pole of a one-dimensional model. I apply this model to a dataset of pundits, and estimates tell a different story about the development of race as an ideological issue.
DISSERTATION
The Coalition Merchants: How Ideologues Shape Parties in American Politics
Dissertation
Abstract: My dissertation proposes a theory of ideology and of the
role that ideology plays in shaping party coalitions. Its empirical
core is a measure of ideology that is independent of partisan politics.
I collect the expressed opinions of political writers at 20 year
intervals from 1830 to 1990. I argue that these thinkers create the
ideology that structures political actors' beliefs and later party
systems. I estimate the ideal points of the pundits in issue space in
the same way that nominate estimates preferences for Members of
Congress. This permits me to compare the issue structure of party
coalitions, as measured by congressional voting, with the issue
structure of pundits. Analysis so far shows that not just ideas but
ideological structures show up first among political intellectuals. As
I further argue, this creates pressure on party politicians to follow
suit, and usually they do. (MORE)