Polarization and Ideology: Partisan Sources of Low Dimensionality in Scaled Roll Call Analyses

In this article, we challenge the conclusion that the preferences of members of Congress are best represented as existing in a low-dimensional space. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations altering assumptions regarding the dimensionality and distribution of member preferences and scale the resulting ro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political analysis 2014-10, Vol.22 (4), p.435-456
Main Authors: Aldrich, John H., Montgomery, Jacob M., Sparks, David B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Caucus
Caucuses
Conflict
Congressional voting
Dimensionality
Empirical evidence
Ideology
Legislative Bodies
Legislators
Matrices
Modeling
Monte Carlo simulation
Partisanship
Polarization
Political parties
Political partisanship
Preferences
Roll Call
Simulation
Upper houses
Voting
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this article, we challenge the conclusion that the preferences of members of Congress are best represented as existing in a low-dimensional space. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations altering assumptions regarding the dimensionality and distribution of member preferences and scale the resulting roll call matrices. Our simulations show that party polarization generates misleading evidence in favor of low dimensionality. This suggests that the increasing levels of party polarization in recent Congresses may have produced false evidence in favor of a low-dimensional policy space. However, we show that focusing more narrowly on each party caucus in isolation can help researchers discern the true dimensionality of the policy space in the context of significant party polarization. We re-examine the historical roll call record and find evidence suggesting that the low dimensionality of the contemporary Congress may reflect party polarization rather than changes in the dimensionality of policy conflict.
ISSN:1047-1987
1476-4989
DOI:10.1093/pan/mpt048