Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Advancing Theoretical and Empirical Models of Legislative Voting Behavior

本博士论文研究支持调查考察了1)立法者在唱名投票中的政策“位置”的来源，以及2)立法者投票的一致性或围绕该位置的差异。这项研究从立法者根据他们的选区、政党和意识形态选择政策位置的普遍智慧开始。然而，议员们也会决定他们的主要目标是争取连任、党内发展还是追求政策成果，这种决定也会影响他们的定位。此外，本研究假设了影响立法者位置的大众投票和委员会分配行为的新模型。为了检验点名模式，需要准确衡量立法者的意识形态，独立于政党和选区，并确定立法者的目标。该项目调查了700名前美国国会议员，以了解他们目前的意识形态和任职后的目标。对这些数据的分析将对选区、政党和意识形态对投票行为的影响产生公正的估计。其次，研究假设投票一致性是地区多样性、政党异质性和成员矛盾心理的函数。提议的调查将产生成员政策矛盾的度量，从而允许方差模型第一次被测试。

This Doctoral Dissertation Research Support investigation examines the sources of 1) legislator policy "location" on roll call votes, and 2) legislator voting consistency, or variance around this location. The study begins with the common wisdom that legislators select a policy location based on their constituency, party, and ideology. However, legislators also decide whether their primary goal is to gain re-election, advance within the party, or pursue policy outcomes, and this determination impacts their positioning as well. Furthermore, this study posits novel models of mass voting and committee assignment behavior that influence legislator location. To test the roll call model requires an accurate measure of legislator ideology, independent of party and constituency, and a determination of legislators' goals. This project surveys 700 former members of the United Sates congress to elicit their current ideology and their goals when in office. Analysis of this data will produce unbiased estimates of the impact of constituency, party, and ideology on voting behavior. Next, the study hypotheses that voting consistency is a function of district diversity, party heterogeneity, and member ambivalence. The proposed survey will yield measures of member policy ambivalence, and thus permit a variance model to be tested for the first time.