| 1. |
- Folke, Olle, et al.
(författare)
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Patronage and Elections in US States
- 2011
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Ingår i: American Political Science Review. - : CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS. - 0003-0554 .- 1537-5943. ; 105:3, s. 567-585
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Does control of patronage jobs significantly increase a political party’s chances of winning elections in U.S. states? We employ a differences-in-differences design, exploiting the considerable variation in the dates that different states adopted civil service reforms. Our evidence suggests that political parties in U.S. states were able to use state-level patronage to increase the probability of maintaining control of state legislatures and statewide elective offices. We also find that an “entrenched” party, in power for a longer time, can use patronage more effectively. We consider several alternative hypotheses that might plausibly account for the patterns in the data, but find no evidence to support them.
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| 2. |
- Snyder, Jr., James M., et al.
(författare)
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Partisan Imbalance in Regression Discontinuity Studies Based on Electoral Thresholds
- 2015
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Ingår i: Political Science Research and Methods. - : CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS. - 2049-8470 .- 2049-8489. ; 3:2, s. 169-186
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many articles use regression discontinuity designs (RDDs) that exploit the discontinuity in “close” election outcomes to identify various political and economic outcomes of interest. One of the most important types of diagnostic tests in an RDD is checking for balance in observable variables within the window on either side of the threshold. Finding an imbalance raises concerns that an unobservable variable may exist that affects whether a case ends up above or below the threshold and also directly affects the dependent variable of interest. This article shows that imbalance in RDDs exploiting close elections are likely to arise even in the absence of any type of strategic sorting. Imbalance may arise simply due to variation in the underlying distribution of partisanship in the electorate across constituencies. Using both simulated and actual election data, the study demonstrates that the imbalances driven by partisanship can be large in practice. It then shows that although this causes a bias for the most naive RDDs, the problem can be corrected with commonly used RDDs such as the inclusion of a local linear control function.
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| 3. |
- Ting, Michael M., et al.
(författare)
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Elections and reform : The adoption of civil service systems in the US states
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Theoretical Politics. - : SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD. - 0951-6298 .- 1460-3667. ; 25:3, SI, s. 363-387
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most government bureaucracies in developed countries use civil service systems. What accounts for their adoption? We develop and test a model of bureaucratic reforms under repeated partisan competition. In the model, two political parties composed of overlapping generations of candidates compete for office. Under a spoils system, an incumbent politician can either continue to politicize the bureaucracy, which allows her to direct benefits to voters in a way that will increase her electoral prospects, or she can insulate the bureaucracy, which prevents all future winners from using the bureaucracy for electoral advantage. Our main result is that politicization persists when incumbents expect to win, and insulation takes place when they expect to lose. We test this hypothesis using data from the adoption of civil service reforms across the U.S. states.The predictions of the model are consistent with the empirical patterns leading up to the implementation of the general civil service reforms. Using both state and city level data, we observe an increase in partisan competition prior to the reforms.
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