Premium
Measuring Aggregate‐Level Ideological Heterogeneity
Author(s) -
LEVENDUSKY MATTHEW S.,
POPE JEREMY C.
Publication year - 2010
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 - 10.3162/036298010791170196
Subject(s) - ideology , legislature , homogeneous , flexibility (engineering) , politics , aggregate (composite) , variety (cybernetics) , econometrics , variable (mathematics) , positive economics , political science , key (lock) , aggregate data , public economics , economics , statistics , law , computer science , statistical physics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , physics , materials science , composite material , computer security , management
Ideological heterogeneity is a key variable for the study of legislative and electoral politics. Scholars have long recognized that members with more ideologically heterogeneous constituencies behave differently than members with more homogeneous ones. Empirical tests of these theories, however, have typically been stymied by a lack of appropriate measures. We corrected this shortcoming by developing a measurement model for ideological heterogeneity, and we used our method to generate estimates for the 50 U.S. states and 435 congressional districts. Beyond the specific results presented here, a key contribution of our model is its flexibility: our technique can be used to produce similar estimates in a variety of contexts.