Reassessing the Incumbency Effect

ISBN-13: 9780521733229 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 184 str.

Jeffrey M. Stonecash

Opis

Incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives have presumably increased their vote percentages in recent decades, raising questions about the efficacy of elections in making members responsive. The evidence, however, indicates there has been no improvement in the electoral fortunes of incumbents in the last 50 years. Only Republicans have improved their electoral fortunes as a result of realignment. This valuable book provides a very different interpretation of how incumbents have fared in recent decades, and the interpretation is supported by non-technical data analysis and presentation.

Spis treści

Part I. An Increased Incumbency Effect: Reconsidering Evidence: 1. An increased incumbency effect and American politics; 2. The consensus about a greater incumbency effect; 3. The trend in incumbent vote percentages; 4. Cumulative career changes; 5. The retirement slump; Part II. Realignment and the Fortunes of (Some) Incumbents: 6. An alternative framework: the role of realignment; 7. A partisan view of incumbent percentages; 8. The role of realignment; 9. Conclusions and implications; Part III. Appendices: More Detailed Analyses of Incumbency Indicators: Appendix A. The Gelman–King estimation; Appendix B. Realignment and the retirement slump; Appendix C. The data.