Members of Congress are less loyal to their party closer to an election, making a vote to authorize force against ISIL unlikely before November

Many commentators have expressed concern that Congress has not yet taken a formal vote to authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIL). In new research, René Lindstädt and Ryan J. Vander Wielen explore why Congress is so reluctant to put issues such as this to a vote around election time. By analyzing party votes, where one party votes in opposition to the other, they find that members are more likely to vote with their party when elections are distant, but as they become nearer, this likelihood falls, as members become concerned about electoral reprisals from their constituents. This means that party leaders are far less likely to schedule highly partisan votes close to an election, for fear of losing votes and seat

A Two-Step Theory and Test of Democratic Waves *

Abstract Scholars, observing clustering in transitions to democracy, argue that democratization diffuses across borders as citizens in autocracies demand the same reforms they witness in neighboring states. We disagree. The present paper asserts that the diffusion of democracy literature rests on weak theoretical foundations and does not properly test for diffusion. We advance an alternative two-step argument to explain clustering of democratization: (1) economic shocks, which are clustered spatially and temporally, induce the breakdown of authoritarian regimes; then (2) democratic diffusion, in turn, influences whether a fallen dictatorship will be replaced by a democracy or a new autocracy. Diffusion, despite playing an important role, is insufficient to explain the clustering of transitions, notably because it cannot account for the timing of the waves. Using data on 125 autocracies from 1875 to 2004, we show that economic crises trigger authoritarian breakdowns, while diffusion determines whether the new regime is democratic or authoritarian. * Thanks t