In the most recent issue of AJPS, Nie and his colleagues have an article that makes those two claims. The claims seem perfectly plausible. And they present well-executed research backing them up. Their findings are consistent with a string of previous work making the same argument and coming to the same conclusion (they list several such studies along the way). The main difference: Previous studies have operationalized “small-circulation outlets” as talk radio or cable television, but Nie et al look at internet news sites. They find that more ideologically extreme folks are more likely to visit online news sites.

At the risk of sounding ungenerous, my reaction was “well, duh.” I suppose it’s important to have precise measurement, so it’s worth looking specifically at who is viewing online news sites even though we would expect to find that the same people who consume other niche media would also consume online news. And I suppose that’s a purpose of journals–to look carefully at specific questions. I’m not criticizing them for writing the article by any means. In fact, a “well duh” reaction means they thought to test something that the rest of us assumed was true without bothering to check for sure. Good for them.

So, in sum: People who visit online news and political sites are more politically extreme. Well, duh.

For years, political scientists have explained this seeming paradox by pointing out that members of Congress can win reelection by running against Congress. A representative can urge his voters to send him back time after time so that he can keep working to fix the broken system. As Fenno wrote in Home Style, “It is easy for each Congressman to explain to his own supporters why he cannot be blamed for the performance of the collectivity . . . because the internal diversity and decentralization of the institution provide such a wide variety of collegial villains to flay before one’s supporters at home” (1978, 167).²

In his textbook on Congressional elections, Gary Jacobson sums up the dominant view among political scientists: “Members are not held individually responsible for their collective performance in governing.” (2004, 227).

David Jones has a recent article in AJPS that challenges this long held view. Jones looks back 60 years to a report commissioned in 1950 by the American Political Science Association Toward a More Responsive Two-Party System. That report urged “greater party cohesion in Congress,” suggesting that the presence of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats makes it more difficult for individual voters to hold their representative accountable for Congress’s collective activities.

Jones argues that the APSA report was correct: If the two parties become more distinct (i.e. polarized), then it should be easier for voters to blame members of the majority party for Congress’s collectively bad (or good) performance. And, as it happens, there’s been quite a bit of research in recent years showing that Congress has, in fact, become more polarized.

If Jones is right, then we’re in a new era. It may have been true 20, 30, or 40 years ago that members of Congress could evade accountability for Congress’s overall activities, but rising polarization has enabled voters to punish or reward Representatives for Congress’s collective performance.

Evidence that Overall Congressional Approval Matters

To test this possibility, Jones compiled each incumbent Representative’s electoral margin going back decades, producing thousands of data points. He then regressed those vote margins on a variety of independent variables. Among others, he regressed vote margins on Congress’s overall approval ratings. More importantly, he also interacted those approval ratings with measures of polarization (party unity).

Take a look at Figure 1 from Jones’s article (below). Along the X axis, Jones shows each year back through 1976. Along the Y axis, he shows that estimated effect of overall Congressional approval on individual incumbents’ vote margins for that year.³ By the end of the series, the estimated effect of overall approval rises above 0.50 (for members of the majority party). In other words, a one percentage point drop in Congressional approval (perhaps from 40 to 39) leads us to expect a 0.50+ drop in each incumbent’s vote margin. This is a powerful effect, subject to a powerful interaction.

Figure 1, Jones 2010

It’s worth noting that there is not similar interaction for members of the minority. Back in the days of low polarization, minority members could win reelection by running against Congress, just like members of the majority. Rising polarization has not prevented minority party members from continuing to run against Congress–and why should it? Minority party members can continue to win by running against Congress, citing all the majority’s misdeeds. Nothing has changed for the minority.

Comment and Criticism

This is an interesting and worthwhile article. It leaves me wondering, though, why 90+% of incumbents continue to win reelection. I began this review by pointing out a seeming paradox from 2008–not from 1976. Even in the most recent Congressional elections, 36% of voters said that most members did not deserve reelection, yet 94% of members won reelection. More generally, we continue to observe Congress (overall) receiving markedly low approval while individual members receive very high approval from their constituents.

If Jones is correct, then we ought not to observe this pattern so strongly anymore, yet we do. I’m not sure how to respond to Jones’s analysis given this continuing disconnect between overall and individual Congressional approval. Perhaps Jones has a serious problem in his statistical analysis that I’m not seeing resulting in an inflated estimate of the interaction. Or perhaps Congressional elections are sufficiently different from Congressional approval that this paradox can persist in approval data even as it evaporates in election results. I’m at a loss to resolve this puzzle.

Masket takes this a step further, arguing that local informal party organizations control nominations and through those nominations exert control over the legislative behavior of politicians.  He argues that “parties control the public behavior of their office holders by acting as gatekeepers to political office.”  While agreeing with Aldrich (1995), that parties help organizing the legislature, Masket argues that parties, and in conjunction party nominations, are primarily a mechanism by which concerned citizens hold legislators accountable for their actions.

Testing and Results

To test these arguments, Masket uses roll-call analysis of the California Assembly prior and subsequent to the 1953 decision to mandate party labels on primary ballots, effectively eliminating the ability of legislators to cross-file in both political primaries.  His analysis of roll call votes as well as votes for the Speaker of the Assembly shows that the imposition of these new regulations on primary elections had a marked effect of increasing a the partisan nature of the legislature, as politics became less bipartisan after the change, which Masket argues was not the desire of those within the legislature.

Inside the Smoke-Filled Rooms and Thoughts on the How

In addition to his quantitative analysis of legislator behavior, Masket also details the structure of 5 different local party organizations: Orange County Republicans, South Los Angeles Democrats, East Side LA County Democrats, West LA Democrats, and the local party organizations of Fresno County.  Through interviews, Masket details the ways in which party organizations exercise their influence using things such as donor networks, sample ballot mailings, and the mobilization of activist networks.

Unfortunately, none of these items that come out through interviews are easily testable, and while Masket presents ample evidence of local influence on the nomination process, it is difficult to determine how much influence these organizations have on the outcome of nominations.

Small Qualms

While Masket’s work shows clearly the change in the influence of parties after the change in primary election law, he doesn’t give any solid quantitative evidence as to how exactly those mechanisms work.  Is it the fundraising network?  Is it the power of mobilization?   While the interviewees claimed to have influence in all of these aspects, the heads of a campaign or a campaign organization has an incentive to make their role as significant as possible in order to increase their status as the gatekeeper.  Masket clearly demonstrates to the reader that local party organizations influence nominations, but falls a little short on convincing the reader as to the mechanism through which these organizations control nominations.

Theories

Proximity theory is the best-known of these three theories. It makes a basic claim: If you line up all the candidates from most liberal to most conservative, voters will pick the candidate whose ideology is most similar to their own. This theory serves as a basic assumption of the median voter theorem and other spatial models.

Discounting theory is similar to proximity voting, but with a recognition that winning candidates will have to battle other elected officials to get anything done. Imagine a genuinely moderate voter who desires middle-of-the-road policies. If the president is a staunch conservative, then that voter might prefer an extremely liberal Congress over a moderate Congress, given that actual policy outcomes will lie somewhere between what Congress and the president wants. Thus, a discounting voter weights candidate proximity based on the status quo.

The third theory, directional theory, argues that voters view the world in black and white. They want to vote for whichever candidate is on their side of the issues. For example, a moderate Republican would rather vote for an extremely conservative Republican than for a moderate Democrat, because the Republican is on the same side of the issues as the voter is–even if the moderate Democrat is closer to the voter ideologically.

Test

Previous attempts to test these three theories against one another empirically have run into several problems. For one thing, candidate positioning is endogenous–candidates try to place themselves ideologically in a winning position. There have also been a variety of measurement problems.

The main problem, though, has been a lack of critical tests. Previous research has not spelled out the exact circumstances under which these three theories yield different empirical results. The authors begin by filling that gap with a formal model. They show that only for voters within a narrow ideological range do the proximity and discounting rules produce divergent predictions; likewise, the proximity and directional rules produce divergent predictions only within another narrow ideological range. (See Figure 1, Table 1, and Figure 2 in the article for summaries of these scenarios.)

Knowledge of these ranges enables the authors to design critical tests of the theories with a simple experimental survey. Three survey questions provide most of the necessary data. First, they ask voters to place themselves on an 11-point ideological scale dealing with health care reform. Second, they ask them to choose one of two hypothetical candidates based only on each candidate’s position on this 11-point scale. And third, they ask voters to place current government policy along this 11-point scale.

Results

Using sophisticated statistical analysis of these data, the authors find that proximity voting is by far most common, followed by discounting and (distantly) directional voting. There is considerable heterogeneity within the sample; 57.7% are proximity voters, 27.6% are discounters, and only 14.7% are directional voters.

Demographic factors help explain some of this heterogeneity. For example, directional voter was twice as common among less educated respondents as among more educated ones. Most interestingly, discounting was much more common among moderates and independents,¹ a finding that may help explain why candidates polarize rather than converging to the ideological center.²

Critique

The authors provide a rigorous answer to a long-unanswered question. Their formal model is thoroughly persuasive, and it shows exactly where the three theories diverge. Thanks in large measure to this formal model, the authors have a compelling paper.

The empirical work is interesting, but I question whether they have underestimated discounting (and overestimated proximity voting). They do acknowledge a potential bias in this direction (p 310), but only in passing. My concern: When voters choose a hypothetical candidate in step two of the questionnaire, how do we know they are not taking account of the status quo? If they are, then they are making a discounted decision–not a proximity decision.

The authors attempt to control for this through question ordering–that is, by placing the status quo question last, not first, so as not to prime respondents toward discounting. But even if the status quo question were absent altogether, you still might have respondents considering the status quo when choosing a candidate. After all, when voters show up on election day, there is not a question on the ballot asking them to place status quo policies on an ideological scale–yet it appears that at least 27.6% of voters do so.

This article did set up a critical test between directional voting and the other two theories, but it did not set up a critical test between proximity and discounting. Granted, it showed that discounting is more common among moderate/independent voters than among others, but that’s only a marginal effect–a worthwhile finding, but not an answer to the puzzle.

Punchline: A significant contribution to this literature, but not a final answer.

At first blush, one might find the question simple: Of course voters are sensitive to terrorism. After all, the 2004 Madrid train bombings are widely credited with changing the outcome of Spain’s elections, to the point that the ever-reliable Wikipedia reports this as fact.² But Berrebi and Klor go well beyond the elementary question of whether terrorism matters–they tell us exactly how it matters.

In brief: Terrorism within a particular locality exerts a strong effect, particularly if it occurs within three months of election day. In general, support for right-bloc parties tends to rise in localities that experience terror attacks.³ This shift towards the right happens regardless of who is currently in power. Voters in an area hit recently by terrorism don’t vote against the right if the right happens to control the government, as a “running tally” view of party would imply (see Fiorina 1981). Instead, they shift to the right even if the right bloc is already in power–as an “issue ownership” argument might imply (e.g. Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994). As the authors interpret it, voters shift right because the right bloc is associated with tough responses to terrorism.

These findings have interesting implications for terrorism research, which the authors review well. In particular, these findings raise something of a paradox: If terrorist acts increase voter support for heavy-handed anti-terror tactics, then do terrorists simply reap troubles for themselves through their actions? The authors’ response: While that may be true, terrorists also succeed in placing terror at the top of the policy agenda–drawing attention to the terrorists’ cause.

Critique

Because of the methodological difficulties involved with this study, the authors spend a considerable amount of space discussing data and robustness issues. I would have liked more discussion of what this all means, though. In particular, the authors assume a purely rational causal mechanism. Both the “running tally” and “issue ownership” arguments fit mold. But nowhere do the authors cite Kam and Kinder’s recent article (2007), which identifies a link between “ethnocentrism” and support for the post-9/11 war on terror. Moreover, neither this study nor Kam and Kinder’s delves into the deep (and highly relevant) psychological literature on mortality salience.

Regardless, an interesting study worth reading carefully.

Political scientists have fretted over that possibility for decades. The first major findings found that mass media had “minimal effects” on public opinion.¹ More recently, scholars have found that political communications can influence opinion in a few ways. Of particular importance for this study, some scholars have reported that politicians and mass media can influence public opinion by choosing how to frame a story. Is protecting rainforests about indigenous rights or environmental concerns?² Are urban growth limits about protecting greenbelts or attracting greenbacks?³

Chong and Druckman’s argument, in essence, is that previous studies have used methodologies that exaggerate the real-world importance of framing. Overwhelmingly, previous experiments have tested the effect of exposing people to a single frame (on one side of the issue) or none at all (the control group). These studies have found strong framing effects.

By contrast, Chong and Druckman develop two frames–one strong, one weak–on each side of their chosen issues, for a total of four frames.⁴ They randomly assign participants to receive some combination of these frames (or, in the control group, none of them). Some receive two frames on one side of the issue; some receive a strong frame on one side, a weak frame on the other side; some receive only a single frame; and some receive both frames on one side and one on the other.

This setup mirrors real political life more closely than the single-frame studies published previously, since real politics involve multiple actors seeking to promote their view. The most interesting and important conclusions:

• Strong frames move opinion significantly. Weak frames generally did not, with some exceptions.
• A weak frame one one side opposed by a strong frame on the other produced a contrast effect; that is, respondents moved even closer to the strong frame’s view than if they had been exposed to only the strong frame. This effect was most pronounced among politically informed participants.
• Competition between strong opposing frames has a moderating effect. Rather than reject the frame that discords with the respondent’s prior views, embracing only the concordant frame, the two frames interacted to pull respondents toward an intermediate position.

The latter conclusion interested me most. With most contentious issues, there are at least two strong frames competing for recognition. In fact, the presence of two strong frames may be what makes an issue contentious in the first place. Studies that explore the effects of only a single frame, rather than examining competing frames, will therefore overstate the importance of frames.

This conclusion about moderation runs contrary to other recent research about polarization. In a literature summarized in Farhad Manjoo’s True Enough⁵, other researchers have found that experiment participants will tend to accept uncritically arguments in favor of their prior view, while searching carefully for flaws in opposing arguments. It is unclear why Chong and Druckman found opposite results.

Do we truly believe that ALL red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying road-kill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks; or that ALL blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts?¹

With that opening quotation from Dave Barry, Mutz introduces her central question: How do Americans form their opinions about their political opponents? Why can some Americans agree to disagree with their “worthy opposition” while others dismiss their political opponents as irrational lunatics?² Numerous previous studies have asked how Americans form their personal political preferences, but Mutz asks a new question. To answer it, Mutz looks carefully at the effects of political television.

In carefully crafted experiments, Mutz examines the effects of two features of political television: Its use of extreme closeups on a speaker’s face rather than on more comfortable upper-body shots, and its tendency to broadcast uncivil shouting matches instead of civil debates. Her experiments feature two actors posing as Congressional candidates, with their debate filmed twice: Both use the same script, but the uncivil one adds rude body language (eyerolling) and sarcastic asides (“You have completely missed the point here!”). Both are filmed simultaneously from both close-up and medium camera perspectives, resulting in a 2×2 treatment matrix.

As it turns out, these two variables interact to influence our attitudes about whichever “candidate” we disagree with. Mutz arrives at three primary conclusions:

1. Incivility and extreme closeups increase viewer arousal (i.e. attention and excitement).
2. In turn, increased arousal improves viewers’ recollection of the two actors’ policy arguments.
3. However, viewers had a much more negative opinion of the opposition actor if they saw the uncivil, close-in version of the debate. By contrast, seeing the civil, close-in version actually increased perceptions of opposition legitimacy relative to the control.

Thus, it appears that television could be used to increase Americans’ perceptions of their opponents, even if it doesn’t change their policy positions. For this to happen, television producers would need to show intimate (close-up) video of civil discussions. More frequently, however, we see close-up video of uncivil disputes, which has exactly the opposite effect; this effect may explain some of the recent increase in American political polarization.

These conclusions are subject to some interactions and qualifiers. Read on.

Place in the Literature

Mutz relies on previous psychological and sociological studies about personal space and arousal. However, her study could also fit into several other literatures that she alludes to with greater or lesser specificity. Most obviously, Mutz’s work fits into the literature on negative campaign advertising, although she does little to make this connection. Some studies (notably those from Ansolabehere and Iyengar) have argued that negative advertising engenders distrust and disgust among the electorate. By contrast, others have argued that negative advertising is a good thing, given that voters can glean valuable information from it (see Freedman et al. 2004). Mutz’s second and third conclusions (above) may help rectify these two positions.

Theoretical Argument

Most citizens have little reason to spend time learning about political candidates, an insight dating back to Downs (1957). However, they can rely on people or groups that they trust as “shortcuts” to acquiring the information they need (see Berelson et al. 1954, Lupia and McCubbins 1998, Page et al. 1987, and Popkin 1994).

In modern politics, televised political discourse serves as one such information shortcut. Voters can watch others engage in political debates rather than engage in them themselves. However, televised political discourse departs in two major ways from normal human discourse. First, camera angles tend to be extremely close-up–much closer than we could comfortably stand to somebody. Second, pundits are far less civil than we normally are to one another.

Previous research has told us a few things about in-your-face and uncivil interaction. First, incivility increases arousal (and attention): “Anything less is too boring to attract the attention of television audiences.” But it also rubs viewers the wrong way. Second, extreme closeness tends to magnify whatever we feel about the person we are close to; if somebody you dislike stands very close to you, you will dislike them even less.

Given these two facts, televised discourse could either increase or decrease viewers’ feelings about the opposition’s legitimacy. Mutz gives three specific hypotheses:

1. Extreme close-ups and incivility will both increase emotional arousal in viewers.
2. This increased arousal will increase how well viewers recall arguments that debate participants make.
3. Extreme close-ups will interact with incivility; “close-up camera perspectives will intensify viewers’ reactions to opposition political arguments and candidates.”

Note that the latter two hypotheses are not interesting unless the first hypothesis is correct.

Experimental Evidence

Adult volunteers watch a televised debate between two candidates in an open race for Congress in a distant state

In reality, the candidates are paid actors. They film their debate twice, using the same script both times, but in one version, they behave less civilly (rolling their eyes, interjecting comments like “You have completely missed the point here!”, and so on). Each of the two versions was shot simultaneously from both a close-up and a medium zoom. Thus, volunteers see one of four versions: Close-up/civil, close-up/uncivil, medium/civil, medium/uncivil.

Participants take a pre-test to assess their views. The previously recorded debate includes policy statements about eight separate issue areas. Mutz is primarily interested in how participants react to the “candidate” whose positions differ from the participant’s.

Experiment 1, Hypothesis 1

Using a subset of participants, experiment 1 is used to test hypothesis 1. As expected, emotional arousal (as measured by skin conductance levels) varies significantly across the four conditions. From greatest to least arousal, these is how the conditions were ranked:

1. Uncivil close-up
2. Uncivil medium
3. Civil close-up
4. Civil medium

This result confirms hypothesis 1.

Experiment 2, Hypothesis 2

In experiment 2, participants filled out a post-viewing questionnaire asking them to list all the arguments they could remember for each side of the debate. The purpose was to test hypothesis 2.

Incivility and extreme close-ups interacted. Viewers exposed to both remembered significantly more opposition arguments than viewers in the other groups.

Experiment 2, Hypothesis 3

Also in experiment 2, participants indicated on feeling thermometers their feelings toward each candidate. Mutz examines viewer polarization–that is, the difference in affect towards the preferred and opposition candidate.

Again, there was an interaction. For viewers who saw the medium-zoom, civility made no difference. But for viewers who saw the close-up version, civility decreased polarization while incivility increased it.

Mutz repeats this analysis with a different measure of opposition legitimacy: Each viewer’s evaluation of the strength of each candidate’s arguments. The same results obtained.

Final Comments

Mutz uses sound experimental methods. As with any experiment, it’s never clear how much these results translate into the real world. Still, I like this study, both for its interesting research question and its persuasive results. I would like to see these insights applied more directly to campaign advertising. Do campaign advertisers use these tactics? If so, we would expect to see close-up shots of the candidate’s opponent behaving uncivilly contrasted with close-up shots of the candidate smiling and behaving well. Presumably, this approach would increase animus toward the opponent among the candidate’s existing supporters, while decreasing dislike of the candidate among the opponent’s supporters.