Parties are more likely to form coalitions with groups that are like them and show loyalty, but not those that are rich.

Forming coalitions with interested groups is an integral part of the American political system. But how do parties decide who to include in their coalition? In new research which uses the transcripts of Democratic Party policy platform hearings, Jennifer Nicoll Victor finds that groups which are closer to the party ideologically, and who show loyalty, are more likely to be brought into the Democrats’ coalition

Competing for the Platform: How Organized Interests affect Party Positioning in the United States

What explains which groups are included in a party coalition in any given election cycle? Recent advances in political party theory suggest that policy demanders comprise parties, and that the composition of a party coalition varies from election to election. We theorize three conditions under which parties articulate an interest group?s preferred positions in its quadrennial platform: when groups are ideologically proximate to the party median, when groups display party loyalty, and when groups are flush with resources. Using computer-assisted content analysis on a unique and rich data source, we examine three cycles of testimony that 80 organized groups provided to the Democratic Party. The analysis compares group requests with the content of Democratic and Republican National Committee platforms in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Results show that parties reward loyal groups and those that are ideologically proximate to the party, but offer no confirmation of a resource effect

Polarized Agents: Campaign Contributions by Lobbyists

Are professional lobbyists loyal partisans? There are thousands of professional lobbyists in Washington, D.C., who work with members of Congress and their staffs, many of whom also make contributions to congressional candidates and political parties. Although many lobbyists have backgrounds in partisan politics, they may have incentives to give money to candidates from both parties. This article finds that professional lobbyists tend to make personal contributions to their preferred party exclusively

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This paper develops a network approach to lobbying. We posit that the building blocks of the lobbying game are relationships, with lobbyists and legislators benefitting from bonds based on familiarity and mutual interest. Using data on contributions from lobbyists to legislators in the 2006 electoral cycle, we identify key dimensions of this network. We find that legislators are more likely to receive donations from the same lobbyists if they are from the same party (in the Senate), state, or committee; if they are both vulnerable in the next election; and the number of common donors increases the more agreement there is in the voting record of a pair of legislators

Replication data for: Dynamic Agenda-setting on the United States Supreme Court: an Empirical Assessment

Because agenda setting is one of the most important activities undertaken by Supreme Court justices, it is hardly surprising to find a rather large body of literature devoted to how they go about performing this task. What is surprising is that the bulk of the agenda-setting literature views the justices in isolation, establishing their own policy priorities with little attention to the preferences and likely actions of actors in other political institutions. Based on a strategic account of agenda setting, we call for a reexamination of this position. Specifically, we argue that Supreme Court justices may be attentive to the preferences and likely actions of members of other political institutions when they go about establishing their agendas, if they hope to maximize their preferences. Because our findings support this claim, we conclude that studies of Court agenda setting, which do not take account of constraints imposed by actors in other institutions, may ignore the realities of the American separation of powers system

Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models for Network Dynamics

Stochastic Actor Oriented Models for Network Dynamics are used for the statistical analysis of longitudinal network data collected as a panel. The probability model defines an unobserved stochastic process of tie changes, where social actors add new ties or drop existing ties in response to the current network structure; the panel observations are snapshots of the resulting changing network. The statistical analysis is based on computer simulations of this process, which provides a great deal of flexibility in representing data constraints and dependence structures. In this Chapter we begin by defining the basic model. We then explicate a new model for nondirected ties, including several options for the specification of how pairs of actors coordinate tie changes. Next, we describe coevolution models. These can be used to model the dynamics of several interdependent sets of variables, such as the analysis of panel data on a network and the behavior of the actors in the network, or panel data on two or more networks. We finish by discussing the differences between Stochastic Actor Oriented Models and some other longitudinal network models. A major distinguishing feature is the treatment of time, which allows straightforward application of the model to panel data with different time lags between waves. We provide a variety of applications in political science throughout