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Third Parties, Elections, and Roll‐Call Votes: The Populist Party and the Late Nineteenth‐Century U.S. Congress
Author(s) -
HIRANO SHIGEO
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.3162/036298008783743282
Subject(s) - roll call , political science , populism , exploit , context (archaeology) , political economy , realigning election , third party , single non transferable vote , public administration , law , politics , voting , sociology , democracy , history , communism , computer security , internet privacy , archaeology , socialism , computer science
What effect do electorally successful third parties have on congressional roll‐call votes? There is widespread belief among scholars that third parties influence the policies of the major parties, but there is little systematic evidence of this influence. I exploit the unique historical context surrounding the Populist Party formation in 1892 to examine the effect of the Populist Party's electoral success on congressional roll‐call votes related to Populist issues. The results are consistent with two claims. First, co‐optation of the Populist Party's issues occurred even before the formation of the party. Second, the co‐optation of Populist policies does not appear to be correlated with the electoral success of the Populist candidates.