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Equilibrium Party Government
Author(s) -
Patty John W.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00334.x
Subject(s) - nominate , opposition (politics) , single non transferable vote , legislature , political science , divided government , government (linguistics) , duverger's law , voting , split ticket voting , realigning election , party platform , public administration , law and economics , political economy , law , economics , politics , communism , socialism , democracy , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , machine learning
In this article, I present an equilibrium model of party government within a two‐party legislature. The theory is predicated upon members of the majority party having potentially conflicting individual and collective interests. In response to this potential conflict, the members of the majority party endogenously choose a degree of control to grant to their leadership. The equilibrium level of party strength is decreasing in the size of the majority party and increasing in the strength of opposition among members of the minority party. The theory implies that the average performance of W‐Nominate estimates of majority party members' ideal points will be a decreasing function of the size of the majority party while the performance of these estimates for members of the minority party will not be affected by the size of the majority party. Using data from the U.S. House and Senate between 1866 and 2004, the theory's predictions are largely consistent with roll‐call voting in both chambers.