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How Do Committee Assignments Facilitate Majority Party Control? Evidence from the Seniority Lottery in the Arkansas State Legislature (with David Broockman) Abstract: We shed new light on the role legislative committees play in facilitating majority party control. We exploit a natural experiment in Arkansas where state legislators choose their own committee assignments in a randomized order and find no evidence that legislators who win their preferred assignments gain appreciable electoral benefits, are more successful as policymakers, or vote differently. That committee assignments appear to have few benefits casts doubt on the widely held view that party leaders can use committees to entice members to support their agenda. We argue that the widely documented correlation between a legislator's party loyalty and the quality of her committee assignments emerges because party leaders want powerful committees to be filled with members who are loyal to their agenda. We bolster this argument by showing that when parties do not control assignments, the least loyal legislators choose the seats on the most attractive committees. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF) |
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The Causal Effect of Media-Driven Political Interest on Political Attitudes and Behavior Abstract: This article considers the hypothesis that media-driven political interest shapes party identification, the timing of vote decisions, and electoral participation. To estimate the effect of media-driven political interest, we make a key distinction between political interest as a lifetime political orientation and political interest that rises and falls with the occurrence of noteworthy political events. We then exploit the shared media markets in Switzerland and its neighboring countries to overcome the otherwise crippling endogeneity problem and identify exogenous increases in Swiss citizens' self-reported political interest caused by the coverage of national elections in France, Germany and Italy. We find that media-driven political interest increases the length of time individuals use to make their vote decisions, decreases partisanship, and increases self-reported and actual turnout. Citation: Butler, Daniel M., and Ana L. De La O. 2011. "The Causal Effect of Media-Driven Political Interest on Political Attitudes and Behavior." Quarterly Journal of Political Science 5 (4): 321-337. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) (Online Appendix) |
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Abstract: The late 1990s saw the introduction and spread of the Internet and email. For social scientists, these technologies lowered communication costs and made inter-department collaboration much easier. Using women in political science as a case study, we show that this change has disproportionately affected women in two ways. First, women have increased the rate at which they co-author journal articles faster than their male counterparts. Second, the lowered communication costs have made women more willing to take jobs at smaller departments because it is now easier to work with colleagues at other universities. Citation: Butler, Daniel M., and Richard J. Butler. 2011. "Is the Internet Bridging the Gap? The Case of Political Science." Economics of Education Review 30 (4): 665-672. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) (Supplementary Material) |
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The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market Abstract: We propose a framework for understanding how the Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers' tendency to seek out media that conforms to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we find that consumers of generally left-of-center (right-of-center) cable news sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news content to be interested in niche political issues. Citation: Nie, Norman H., Derwin W. Miller, III, Saar Golde, Daniel M. Butler, and Kenneth Winneg. Forthcoming 2010. "The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market." American Journal of Political Science 54 (2): 428-439. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) (Online Appendix) |
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Abstract: During the 2008 presidential election we submitted letters to the editor at 100 major U.S. newspapers as part of a field experiment to test whether interest in the letter depended on which candidate the letter supported. We find, contrary to what charges of a liberal media bias would suggest, that newspapers expressed more interest in pro-McCain letters than pro-Obama letters. Further, we find that papers were most likely to be interested in letters supporting the candidate they did not endorse, a result that is consistent with the idea that editors seem to be using their gate keeping powers to allow dissenting opinions to be heard. Citation: Butler, Daniel M. and Emily Schofield. 2010. "Were Newspapers More Interested in pro-Obama Letters to the Editor in 2008? Evidence from a Field Experiment." American Politics Research 38 (2): 356-371. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) |
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Abstract: Candidates face a trade-off in the general election between taking a more-moderate position that appeals to swing voters and a more-extreme position that appeals to voters in the party's base. The threat of abstention by voters in the party's base if their candidate takes a position too moderate for them moves candidates to take more-extreme positions. I discuss hypotheses regarding how this trade-off affects candidate positioning and describe my tests of those hypotheses using data on House members in the 107th Congress and Senate members for the period 1982-2004. I then present data on how the distribution of voters in the electorate has changed over the past three decades and discuss how, in light of my empirical findings, these changes might explain the observed pattern of asymmetric polarization in Congress in recent decades. Citation: Butler, Daniel M. 2009. "The Effect of the Size of Voting Blocs on Incumbents' Roll-Call Voting and the Asymmetric Polarization of Congress." Legislative Studies Quarterly 34 (3): 297-318. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) (Online Appendix) |
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A Regression Discontinuity Design Analysis of the Incumbency Advantage and Tenure in the U.S. House. Abstract: This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to compare the incumbency advantage enjoyed by freshmen and non-freshmen incumbents. The results show that compared to freshmen incumbents that barely won the last election, non-freshmen incumbents that barely won get 2.3 percentage points more in the next election. Further results suggest that the ability to deter high quality challengers is an important source of that advantage. Citation: Butler, Daniel M. 2009. "A Regression Discontinuity Design Analysis of the Incumbency Advantage and Tenure in the U.S. House." Electoral Studies 28 (1): 123-128. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) |
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Abstract: In this paper, we examine how expanded Internet usage has affected co-authorship and research between academic political scientists and economists within the same department. We find that the relative number of papers co-authored between departments has increased as the number of papers by authors solely within the same department has declined. Further we find evidence consistent with the claim that the Internet has had an equalizing effect by giving researchers outside the top-ten departments access to high quality research expertise in the form of collaborators at other universities. Citation: Butler, Daniel M., Richard J. Butler, and Jesse Rich. 2008. "The Equalizing Effect of the Internet on Access to Research Expertise in Political Science and Economics." PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (3): 579-584. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) (Online Appendix) |
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Abstract: In 1995, Beck and Katz (B&K) instructed the profession on "What to do (and not to do) with time-series, cross-section data," and almost instantly their prescriptions became the new orthodoxy for practitioners. Our assessment of the intellectual aftermath of this paper, however, does not inspire confidence in the conclusions reached during the past decade. The 195 papers we reviewed show a widespread failure to diagnose and treat common problems of time-series, cross-section (TSCS) data analysis. To show the importance of the consequences of the B&K assumptions, we replicate eight papers in prominent journals and find that simple alternative specifications often lead to drastically different conclusions. Finally, we summarize many of the statistical issues relative to TSCS data and show that there is a lot more to do with TSCS data than many researchers have apparently assumed. Citation: Wilson, Sven, and Daniel M. Butler. 2007. "A Lot More To Do: The Sensitivity of Time-Series Cross-Section Analyses to Simple Alternative Specifications." Political Analysis 15 (2): 101-123. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) |
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Splitting the Difference? Causal Inference and Theories of Split-party Delegations Abstract: We provide an introduction to the regression discontinuity design (RDD) and use the technique to evaluate models of sequential Senate elections predicting that the winning party for one Senate seat will receive fewer votes in the next election for the other seat. Using data on U.S. Senate elections from 1946 to 2004, we find strong evidence that the outcomes of the elections for the two Senate seats are independent Citation: Butler, Daniel M., and Matthew J. Butler. 2006. "Splitting the Difference? Causal Inference and Theories of Split-party Delegations." Political Analysis 14 (4): 439-455. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) |
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Mixing and Matching: The Effect on Student Performance on Teaching Assistants of the Same Gender Abstract: Using data on the gender of students in an introductory political science class and their teaching assistants, we see whether the gender of the teaching assistant affects the students' performance in the class. We find that the gender of the teaching assistant has no effect on the scores, either on the tests or assignments, of the students who complete the class. However, for female students there is some evidence that they are slightly more likely to finish the course when they have a female teaching assistant. This is consistent with arguments that women instructors serve as important role models who help motivate their pupils. Citation: Butler, Daniel M., and Ray Christensen. 2003. "Mixing and Matching: The Effect on Student Performance on Teaching Assistants of the Same Gender." PS: Political Science and Politics 36 (October): 781-786. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF, On-line Journal) Note: Reprinted in 2005. Quantitative Methods in Practice: Readings from PS. Ed. David A. Rochefort. |
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Monitoring Bureaucratic Compliance: Using Field Experiments to Improve Governance Abstract: How do legislators get bureaucrats to implement the laws they pass? McCubbins and Schwartz (1984) suggest that 'fire alarms' (i.e. where the legislators rely on citizens and organized interest groups to let them know about instances of bureaucratic non-compliance), provide a cost-effective way to achieve this compliance. This paper reports on the results of a field experiment done in Kentucky that tests whether interest groups can improve bureaucratic compliance by informing the bureaucrats that they plan to audit them and make the results public. Citation: Butler, Daniel M. 2010. "Monitoring Bureaucratic Compliance: Using Field Experiments to Improve Governance." Public Sector Digest 2010 (winter): 41-44. Links: (Download Paper: Local PDF) |