Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:20:25.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Words and Money Cultivate a Personal Vote: The Effect of Legislator Credit Claiming on Constituent Credit Allocation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2012

JUSTIN GRIMMER ,
SOLOMON MESSING  and
SEAN J. WESTWOOD
JUSTIN GRIMMER*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
SOLOMON MESSING*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
SEAN J. WESTWOOD*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
Justin Grimmer is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Encina Hall West, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA, 94305 (jgrimmer@stanford.edu).
Solomon Messing is a Ph.D. candidate, Department of Communication, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Building 120, Room 110, Stanford, CA, 94305 (messing@stanford.edu).
Sean J. Westwood is a Ph.D. candidate, Department of Communication, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Building 120, Room 110, Stanford, CA, 94305 (seanjw@stanford.edu).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Particularistic spending, a large literature argues, builds support for incumbents. This literature equates money spent in the district with the credit constituents allocate. Yet, constituents lack the necessary information and motivation to allocate credit in this way. We use extensive observational and experimental evidence to show how legislators’ credit claiming messages—and not just money spent in the district—affect how constituents allocate credit. Legislators use credit claiming messages to influence the expenditures they receive credit for and to affect how closely they are associated with spending in the district. Constituents are responsive to credit claiming messages—they build more support than other nonpartisan messages. But contrary to expectations from other studies, constituents are more responsive to the total number of messages sent rather than the amount claimed. Our results have broad implications for political representation, the personal vote, and the study of U.S. Congressional elections.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 106 , Issue 4 , November 2012 , pp. 703 - 719
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arnold, R. Douglas. 1979. Congress and the Bureaucracy: A Theory of Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ashworth, Scott, and Bueno de Mesquita, Scott. 2006. “Delivering the Goods: Legislative Particularism in Different Electoral and Institutional Settings.” Journal of Politics 68 (1): 168–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bednar, Jenna. 2007. “Credit Assignment and Federal Encroachment.” Supreme Court Economic Review 15 (1): 285–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Huber, Gregory A., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis 20: 351–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Christopher R., Burden, Barry C., and Howell, William G.. 2010. “The President and the Distribution of Federal Spending.” American Political Science Review 104: 783–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bickers, Kenneth N., and Stein, Robert M.. 1996. “The Electoral Dynamics of the Federal Pork Barrel.” American Journal of Political Science 40 (4): 1300–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buhrmester, Michael, Kwang, Tracy, and Gosling, Samuel D.. 2011. “Amazon's Mechanical Turk A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6 (1): 3–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cacioppo, John, and Petty, Richard. 1989. “Effects of Message Repetition on Argument Processing, Recall, and Persuasion.” Basic and Applied Psychology 10 (1): 3–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, Bruce, Ferejohn, John, and Fiorina, Morris. 1987. The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassino, Daniel, and Lodge, Milton. 2007. “The Primacy of Affect in Political Cognition.” In The Affect Effect: Dynamics of Emotion in Political Thinking and Behavior, eds. Neuman, W. Russell, Marcus, George, Crigler, Ann, and MacKuen, Michael. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Jowei. 2010. “Electoral Geography's Effect on Pork Barreling in Legislatures.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (2): 301–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleveland, William S. 1979. “Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Scatterplots.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 74 (368): 829–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Timothy. 1988. “Press Secretaries and Media Strategies in the House of Representatives: Deciding Whom to Pursue.” American Journal of Political Science 32 (4): 1047–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary, and McCubbins, Mathew. 1986. “Electoral Politics as a Redistributive Game.” Journal of Politics 48 (2): 370–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crespin, Michael H., Finocchiaro, Charles J., and Wanless, Emily O.. 2009. “Perception and Reality in Congressional Earmarks.” The Forum 7: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael, and Keeter, Scott. 1997. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dixit, Avinash, and Londregan, John. 1995. “Redistributive Politics and Economic Efficiency.” American Political Science Review 89 (4): 856–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 2000. “Equilibria in Campaign Spending Games: Theory and Data.” American Political Science Review 94 (3): 595–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Diana. 1994. “Policy and Pork: The Use of Pork Barrel Projects to Build Policy Coalitions in the House of Representatives.” American Journal of Political Science 38 (4): 894–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Diana, Bickers, Kenneth N., Stein, Robert M., and Wrinkle, Robert D.. 2007. “The Electoral Effect of Credit Claiming for Pork Barrel Projects in Congress.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard. 1978. Home Style: House Members in their Districts. New York: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1974. Pork Barrel Politics: Rivers and Harbors Legislation, 1947–1968. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1977. Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1981. “Some Problems in Studying the Effects of Resource Allocation in Congressional Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 25 (3): 543–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaines, Brian J., Kuklinski, James H., and Quirk, Paul J.. 2007. “The Logic of the Survey Experiment Reexamined.” Political Analysis 15 (1): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Alan. 1998. “Estimating the Effect of Campaign Spending on Senate Election Outcomes Using Instrumental Variables.” American Political Science Review 92 (2): 401–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimmer, Justin. 2010. “A Bayesian Hierarchical Topic Model for Political Texts: Measuring Expressed Agendas in Senate Press Releases.” Political Analysis 18 (1): 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimmer, Justin. N.d. . “Appropriators Not Position Takers: The Distorting Effects of Electoral Incentives on Congressional Representation.” American Journal of Political Science. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J., and King, Gary. 2010. “A Method of Automated Nonparametric Content Analysis for Social Science.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (1): 229–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 1978. “The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections.” American Political Science Review 72 (2): 469–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Philip Edward. N.d. . “The Effect of Political Competition on Democratic Accountability.” Political Behavior. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Noah, Park, David K., and Ridout, Travis N.. 2006. “Dialogue in American Political Campaigns? An Examination of Issue Convergence in Candidate Television Advertising.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (3): 724–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kildee, Rep. Dale. 2008. “Representative Kildee Announces $2.5 Million for Bishop Expansion.” http://kildee.house.gov/ (accessed August 29, 2012).Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas L., and Reeves, Andrew. 2012. “The Influence of Federal Spending on Presidential Elections.” American Political Science Review 106 (2): 348–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazarus, Jeffrey, and Reiley, Shauna. 2010. “The Electoral Benefits of Distributive Spending.” Political Research Quarterly 63 (2): 343–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Frances E. 2003. “Geographic Politics in the US House of Representatives: Coalition Building and Distribution of Benefits.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (4): 714–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitt, Steven D., and Snyder, James M.. 1997. “The Impact of Federal Spending on House Election Outcomes.” The Journal of Political Economy 105 (1): 30–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, Milton, Taber, Charles, and Verhulst, Brad. 2011. “Conscious and Unconscious Information Processing with Implications for Experimental Political Science.” In Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, Milton, Steenbergen, Marco, and Brau, Shawn. 1995. “The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation.” American Political Science Review 89 (2): 309–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Paul S. 2003. “Voting's Rewards: Voter Turnout, Attentive Publics, and Congressional Allocation of Federal Money.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (1): 110–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 2011. The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neugebauer, Rep. Randy. 2005. “Rep. Neugebauer Works for Funding for Texas Tech University Health Services Center, Rural Health Initiatives.” http://randy.house.gov/ (accessed August 29, 2012).Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Bruce I. 1996. “The Representational Experience: The Effect of State Population on Senator-Constituency Linkages.” American Journal of Political Science 40 (4): 1280–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F., Schiller, Wendy J., and Sellers, Patrick J.. 2003. “Tactical and Contextual Determinants of U.S. Senators’ Approval Ratings.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 28 (2): 203–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellers, Patrick J. 1997. “Fiscal Consistency and Federal District Spending in Congressional Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (3): 1024–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serra, Gilles. 2010. “Polarization of What? A Model of Elections with Endogenous Valence.” The Journal of Politics 72 (02): 426–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepsle, Kenneth A., et al. 2009. “The Senate Electoral Cycle and Bicameral Appropriations Politics.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (2): 343–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sniderman, Paul M., and Grob, Douglas B.. 1996. “Innovations in Experimental Design in Attitude Surveys.” Annual Review of Sociology 22: 377–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. “A Validation of Amazon Mechanical Turk for the Collection of Acceptability Judgments in Linguistic Theory.” Behavior Research Methods 43 (1): 155–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stein, Robert M., and Bickers, Kenneth N.. 1994. “Congressional Elections and the Pork Barrel.” Journal of Politics 56 (2): 377–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Robert M., and Bickers, Kenneth N.. 1997. Perpetuating the Pork Barrel: Policy Subsystems and American Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strömberg, David. 2004. “Radio's Impact on Public Spending.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (1): 189–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1974. “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Science 185 (4157): 1124–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wichowsky, Amber. N.d. . “District Complexity and the Personal Vote.” Legislative Studies Quarterly. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Yiannakis, Diana Evans. 1982. “House Members’ Communication Styles: Newsletter and Press Releases.” Journal of Politics 44 (4): 1049–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zajonc, Robert B. 2001. “Mere Exposure: A Gateway to the Subliminal.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 10: 224–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Grimmer Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Grimmer Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 3.5 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.