2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Paper Gender Bending: Strategies in Candidate Direct Mail
Monica C. Schneider, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Overview: Under what conditions do male and female candidates
use rhetoric that is consistent or inconsistent with gender
stereotypes? I examine candidate use of gender-based strategies
using a unique set of data: direct mail pieces from House and
Senate candidates.
Disc. Joseph Giammo, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
24-5 ELECTORAL SYSTEMS AND POLICY
Room Suite 9-128, 9 th Floor, Fri at 9:50 am
Chair Matthew Wall, Trinity College, Dublin
Paper Much Ado About Nothing: Congruence, Choice, and Two
Visions of Democracy
Matthew R. Golder, Florida State University
Jacek Stramski, Florida State University
Overview: When are the policies of a government likely to be
congruent with the preferences of its people? When are voters
likely to have a meaningful choice at election time?
Paper Expressive Motives, Third-Party Candidates, and Voter
Welfare
Indridi H. Indridason, University of Iceland
Overview: We consider a model of electoral competition where a
subset of voters cast expressive or sincere votes. We characterize
the equilibria of the game showing that, given certain conditions,
third party candidates leave their constituency worse off.
Paper Heterogeneity and Representation Reconsidered
Benjamin G. Bishin, University of California, Riverside
Overview: Research holds legislators from diverse constituencies
are less responsive to citizens and more responsive to party and
other influences. Once subconstituencies are considered, the
differences observed according to state diversity disappear.
Paper Intraparty Institutions and Representation
Georgia C. Kernell, Columbia University
Overview: This paper examines how intraparty institutions shape
representation of voters, partisans and activists.
Disc. Matthew Wall, Trinity College, Dublin
25-8 PUBLIC OPINION, FOREIGN POLICY, AND THE
IRAQ WAR
Room Salon 9, 3 rd Floor, Fri at 9:50 am
Chair William J. Josiger, Georgetown University
Paper Media Coverage of Casualties and American Perceptions of
Casualties in Iraq
Michael Cobb, North Carolina State University
Overview: This study collects and analyzes news coverage of war
casualties in Iraq since the invasion to the present, and compares
media coverage to actual casualty rates and Americans' estimates
of cumulative casualties.
Paper Impact of Presidential Religious Rhetoric on Public Opinion
of the Iraq War
Shannon M. Scotece, SUNY, Albany
Overview: This paper will examine whether religious rhetoric has
been used effectively by President Bush to influence religious
citizens' public opinion on the Iraq War.
Paper Foreign Trade Policy and Public Opinion, 1978-2004
Julia Rabinovich, Northwestern University
Overview: This paper examines government officials’
responsiveness to the public’s foreign policy preferences using
data from the 1978-2004 quadrennial elite and public opinion
surveys sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
(CCFR).
Paper U.S. Foreign Policy and Multilateralism: A Comparison of
American Leaders and Mass Opinion
Gregory G. Holyk, University of Illinois, Chicago
Overview: The general public has been quite supportive of
multilateralism while policy leaders have not. This study analyses
a core group of questions relating to multilateralism and overall
values in 10 CCFR polls (1974 to 2006) to explain this disconnect.
Paper The American Public’s Ambivalent Attitude in Foreign Policy
Young Hwan Park, University of Alabama
Overview: Under incomplete information and confined cognitive
resources, individuals tend to use theory-driven information
processing in forming political judgements across a range of
policy domains.
Disc. Richard Sobel, Harvard Medical School
25-301 POSTER SESSION: PUBLIC OPINION
Room Exhibit Hall, 4 th Floor, Fri at 9:50 am
Presenter 2008 and Beyond: Unraveling the Dean Vote in the 2004
Democratic Presidential Primaries
(Board 1)
Gabriella Paar-Jakli, Kent State University
Caroline Tolbert, University of Iowa
Overview: 2008 and Beyond: Unraveling the Dean Vote in the
2004 Democratic Presidential Primaries
Presenter Muslim American Politics in the Post-9/11 Era
(Board 2)
Geoffrey Peterson, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
David Jacobs, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Overview: Using recent national survey data, this paper seeks to
examine how Muslim-Americans think and act politically since
the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
Presenter An Attitudinal Explanation of the Increasing Use of Initiatives
(Board 3)
Hoi-ok Jeong, University of Iowa
Overview: My paper explains what causes the increasing use of
initiative process. I argue that the increase in direct democracy
results largely from two basic attitudinal trends: the weakening of
political efficacy and the declining trust in government.
Presenter African American Affect Towards Chisholm in the 1972
Presidential Election
(Board 4)
Christopher J. Clark, University of Iowa
Overview: I aim to explore who better explains affect of African
Americans toward Shirley Chisholm: Chisholm or scholars. This
paper is important because it may provide proof that candidates
better understand their bases of support than scholars think.
Presenter The Responsive Electorate
(Board 5)
Peter K. Enns, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Overview: I construct a theory of message reception that predicts
the most and least informed segments of society update their
attitudes in response to elite discourse. Analysis of attitudes
toward welfare, defense, and policy mood support this hypothesis.
Presenter Protecting the Flag: Public Opinion on a Constitutional
Amendment to Prohibit Flag Burning from 1989 to 2006
(Board 6)
Peter C. Hanson, University of California, Berkeley
Iris Hui, University of California, Berkeley
Overview: The paper examines changes in the nature of public
opinion on a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning.
The roles played by variables such as patriotism, support for
limited government, partisanship, education, love of the flag and
ideology.
26-6 POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION
Room Clark 9, 7 th Floor, Fri at 9:50 am
Chair Jan E. Leighley, University of Arizona
Paper Information and Voter Turnout
Tetsuya Matsubayashi, Texas A&M University
Overview: This project will reconsider the role of information as a
determinant of voter turnout. I will extend Downs' model by
focusing on the concept of opinion ambivalence and test a
hypothesis that citizens are less likely to go to the polls as
additional information becomes available.
Paper Political Expertise, Shared Biases, and Patterns of Political
Communication
T. K. Ahn, Florida State University
Robert Huckfeldt, University of California, Davis
John B. Ryan, University of California, Davis
Overview: One way to minimize political information costs is to
obtain guidance from other individuals, and the primary purpose
of this paper is to evaluate the relative importance of expertise and
shared biases in the resulting patterns of communication.
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