Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S. House Elections, 1946-86 Gary C. Jacobson The American Political Science Review, Vol. 83, No. 3. Sep., 1989), pp. 773-793. Stable URL hitp:/flinks.jstor-org/sicisici=0003-0594% 28 198909% 2983%3A3%3C773%3ASPATDOW3E2.0,.CO%3B2-4 ‘The American Political Science Review is currently published by American Political Science Association Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hutp:/wwwjstor.org/joumals/apsa.himl. ch copy of any part of'a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Mon Sep 4 17:18:22 2006STRATEGIC POLITICIANS AND THE DYNAMICS OF U.S. HOUSE ELECTIONS, 1946-86 GARY C. JACOBSON University of California San Diego. A alysis of both district-level and aggregate time-series data from postwar House elections supports the thesis that strategic political elites play a pivotal role in translating national conditions into election results and therefore in hold- ‘ing members of Congress collectively accountable for the government's performance. More high-quality candidates run when prospects appear to favor their party; they ‘also ‘win significantly more votes and victories than other candidates in equivalent circum- stances. Thus, strategic career decisions both reflect and enhance national partisan tides. The electoral importance of strategic politicians has grown over time in tandem with the trend toward candidate-centered electoral politics. This has rendered the effects of national forces less automatic, more contingent, thus threatening the capacity of elec- tions to enforce some degree of collective responsibility. Free, competitive elections are, supposed 19, encourage leaders to govern responsibly because voters can fire them if they do not. But the kind of accountability elections enforce depends on the structure of electoral politics. Where votes are cast to choose a governing. party—and only incidently particular legislators, as in most parlia- mentary systems —enforcement of collec- tive responsibility is unproblematic, and incentives for legislators to pursue suc- cessful national policies are unambiguous. Contests that revolve around local candi- dates and issues to the neglect of national parties and programs, like most present- day House elections, reward individual responsiveness at the expense of collective responsibility. They inspire far more sen- sitivity to the focal implications of policies attacking national problems than to the national problems created by aggressive pursuit of local interests (Mayhew 1974; Fiorina 1980; Jacobson 1987c). A national legislature composed of people who believe that when it comes to elections, “al politics is local” naturally finds it diffi- cult to act responsibly. For this reason, any feature of congres- sional election politics that does enforce Some degree of collective accountability deserves special attention. The feature that has attracted the most scholarly at- tention is how a party's electoral fortunes tise and fall with the economy and the publics appraisal of the administration, ‘The stronger the economy and the more widely approved the president's perform- ance, the more congressional seats the president's party wins. The weaker the economy and the more dissatisfied people are with the administration, the more seats the president's party loses. Varia~ tions in the partisan division of congres- sional seats are thus the consequence of an electorate acting, in aggregate, like V. O. AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW ‘VOLUME 83 NO. 3 SEPTEMBER 1989American Political Science Review Vol. 83 Keys “rational god of vengeance and reward’ (Abramowitz and Segal 1986; Arcelus and Melzer 1975; Kramer 1971; Lewis-Beck and Rice 1985; Tufte 1975, 1978). ‘Aggregate retribution implies individu- al retribution: voters might impose collec- tive responsibility simply by voting their pocketbooks and opinions of the adminis- tration. But survey evidence makes it doubtful that the process is this simple. Individual analogs of national economic ‘conditions (change in family income, ex- perience with unemployment) appear to have little or no impact on voting for House candidates in general (Born 1986; Kiewiet 1983), though such results are somewhat stronger when analysis is restricted to districts held by incumbents of the presidents party and to election years when the economy's performance ‘was below par (Alford and Hibbing 1982; Hibbing and Alford 1981; Weatherford 11986). More general economic assess- ‘ments ~of business conditions, of the ad- rministration’s economic policies and per- formance, of party competence on eco- ‘nomic matters —sometimes influence indi- vidual voting decisions; though, once again, few relationships remain’ stable across election years (Abramowitz, Cover, and Norpoth 1984; Fiorina 1981, 11983; Jacobson 1983; Kiewiet 1983). Evaluations of presidents and presiden- tial candidates influence the House vote somewhat more consistently, but even here exceptions appear. For example, midternasesements of Johneon and Reagan had a significant influence on House voters, while evaluations of Ford and Carter made litle apparent difference (Abramowitz 1984; Fiorina 1981; Jacob- son 1983; Jacobson and Kernell 1987; Kernell 1977). The impact of presidential coattails also varies considerably from cone election to the next (Calvert and Fere- john 1983). Some studies have even con- cluded that Watergate did not have a ma~ jor impact on voting decisions despite the heavy losses suffered by Republicans in 1974 (Conway and Wyckoff 1980; Mc- Leod, Brown, and Becker 1977; Miller and Glass 1977), though other analyses link the House vote to reactions to Ford's pardon of Nixon (Fiorina 1981; Uslaner and Conway 1985). Some of the voters, some of the time, then, appear to treat the House election as a referendum on the administration and economy. But the survey findings are suf- ficiently spotty and inconsistent to leave grave doubts whether referendum voting is adequate to account for the observed aggregate patterns. Thus Samuel Kernell and I have proposed an alternative (though complimentary) explanation. We argue that strategic political elites play a pivotal role in translating national condi- tions into election results and therefore in holding members of Congress collectively accountable for the government's per- formance (Jacobson and Kernell 1983). Strategic Politicians Our explanation takes as its point of departure the same idiosyncratic features of USS, elections that mak the enforce. ‘ment of collective responsibility problem atic. The executive and legislature are elected separately. Electoral partisanship is muted; most citizens think that they should vote for the “better” person regard- less of party. The same surveys that offer but limited evidence of referendum voting offer abundant evidence of candidate- centered voting. What voters know and think of the particular pair of candidates running in the district has a major influ- tence on their decision; and they evaluate House candidates far more often in terms cof personal character and services than in terms of parties, policies, or national issues (Jacobson 1987c).. The choice offered locally between can- dlidates is thus the main focus of electoral Politics. In contests between House in- 778