The Vanishing Marginals and Electoral Responsiveness

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 21-38

  Ansolabehere, Stephen ^a   Brady, David ^b   Fiorina, Morris ^c  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84934563251     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123400000338     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Robert Erikson, ‘Malapportionment, Gerrymandering, and Party Fortunes in Congressional Elections’, American Political Science Review, 66 (1972), 1234-45.
2. Edward Tufte, ‘The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Two-party Systems’, American Political Science Review, 67 (1973), 540-7.
3. David Mayhew, ‘Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals’, Polity, 6(1974), 295–317.
4. For detailed reviews see Richard Beth, ‘ “Incumbency Advantage” and Incumbency Resources: Recent Articles’, Congress and the Presidency, 9 (1981–2), 119–36.
5. and ‘Recent Research on “Incumbency Advantage” in House Elections’, Congress and the Presidency, 11 (1984), 211–24.
6. Warren Kostroski, ‘Party and Incumbency in Post-War Senate Elections: Trends, Patterns, and Models’, American Political Science Review, 68 (1973), 1213-34.
7. Melissa Collie and David Brady, ‘The Decline of Party Voting Coalitions in the House of Representatives,’ in Lawrence Dodd and Bruce Oppenheimer, Congress Reconsidered, 3rd edn (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1985), pp. 272-87.
8. George Edwards, Presidential Influence in Congress (San Francisco: Freeman, 1980), pp. 70–8.
9. Thomas Mann, ‘Is the House of Representatives Unresponsive to Political Change?’ in A. James Reichley, ed., Elections American Style (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 266–8.
10. Collie and Brady, ‘Decline of Partisan Voting Coalitions’.
11. Anthony King, The American Polity in the Late 1970s: Building Coalitions in the Sand’, in Anthony King, ed., The New American Political System (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1978), pp. 371-95.
12. Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris Fiorina, The Personal Vote (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), chaps 8–9.
13. Gary C. Jacobson, ‘The Marginals Never Vanished: Incumbency and Competition in Elections to the US House of Representatives, 1952-82’, American Journal of Political Science, 31 (1987), 126–41.
14. Thomas Mann, Unsafe at Any Margin: Interpreting American Elections (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1978).
15. Jacobson, The Marginals Never Vanished,’p. 130.
16. Jacobson,‘The Marginals Never Vanished’, p. 133.
17. Albert Cover and David Mayhew, ‘Congressional Dynamics and the Decline of Competitive Congressional Elections’, in Lawrence Dodd and Bruce Oppenheimer, eds, Congress Reconsidered (New York: Praeger, 1977).
18. Cain, Ferejohn and Fiorina, Personal Vote, chap. 3.
19. Mayhew, ‘Case of the Vanishing Marginals’, p. 295.
20. Morris Fiorina, Congress-Keystone of the Washington Establishment (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 1977), pp. 12–13.
21. Mann, ‘Is the House of Representatives Unresponsive?’, pp. 266–8.
22. Jacobson remarks that ‘The pattern for the 1950s indicates that new members were often swept into office by a partisan tide, then swept out again once it had receded’ (‘The Marginals Never Vanished’, p, 136).
23. Mann offers a scenario for a Republican capture of the House, but he offers it ‘not as a likely occurrence, but as a plausible one’ (see ‘Is the House Unresponsive to Political Change?’ p. 278).
24. Jacobson, The Marginals Never Vanished’, p. 128.
25. Richard Niemi and Patrick Fett, ‘The Swing Ratio: An Explanation and Assessment’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 11 (1986), 75–90. The Butler method involves tracing out a hypothetical seats-votes curve by calculating how many actual outcomes would have been changed by uniform positive and negative swings of given magnitudes, often the twenty numbers between -10 per cent and +10 per cent inclusive.
26. David Brady and Bernard Grofman, ‘Sectional Differences in Partisan Bias and Electoral Responsiveness in US House Elections 1850-1980’, British Journal of Political Science, 21 (1991), 247–56.
27. Graham Gudgin and Peter Taylor, Seats, Votes and the Spatial Organization of Elections (London: Pion Press, 1979), pp. 56–9, passim.
28. Erikson, ‘Malapportionment’ Fiorina, Congress;.
29. Richard Born, ‘Generational Replacement and the Growth of Incumbent Reelection Margins in the US House’, American Political Science Review, 73 (1979), 811-17.
30. Gary King and Andrew Gelman, ‘Systemic Consequences of Incumbency Advantage in Congressional Elections’, American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 1142–64.
31. Kenneth A. Shepsle, Models of Multiparty Electoral Competition (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic, 1991), chaps. 4–7.
32. Andrew Gelman and Gary King, ‘Estimating Incumbency Advantage without Bias’, American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 1142–64.
33. R. Weisberg, ‘Have House Elections Become a Meaningless Ritual?’ in Norman Luttbeg, ed., Public Opinion and Public Policy, 3rd edn (Itasca, 111.: F. E. Peacock, 1981).