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WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT CONGRESSIONAL POLITICS FROM DIMENSIONAL STUDIES OF ROLL‐CALL VOTING?
Author(s) -
Koford Kenneth
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1994.tb00095.x
Subject(s) - roll call , voting , politics , political science , positive economics , computer science , law and economics , sociology , economics , law
How many dimensions are there in Congressional roll‐call votes? What do dimensions tell us about Congressional politics? Poole and Rosenthal have found one or a very few dimensions. Earlier work has identified problems with Poole and Rosenthal's dimensional fitting method. This paper finds additional problems, showing that when legislators’relative intensity of preferences varies across issues, the Poole and Rosenthal approach will fail. Specifically, while redistributive issues fit their model, distributive and regulative issues allow gains from trade, and thus vote‐trading and coalition‐building. Roll‐call data show voting patterns inconsistent with the Poole and Rosenthal model.