The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 made the production of an annual comprehensive budgetary framework the central focus of the federal budget process. Before 1974, the budget process had allowed legislation from each of the revenue committees and each of the appropriations subcommittees to come to the floor separately. Congress judged the merits of individual programs without considering the overall budget. The 1974 budget act changed the organizational ethos of the budget process from incremental change to comprehensive review and from fragmented, ad hoc decision making to coordinated decision making. It helped sort members into ideologically homogenous groups by transforming many battles over separate policy priorities into one grand battle over the biggest question in American politics: What is the role of government? The 1974 shift to comprehensive budgeting, along with subsequent additional controls on budget practices, has magnified and accelerated the effects of the many polarizing forces that have characterized the last 40 years of American politics. With this conclusion come unanswered questions regarding the merits of a distinct two-party system, as well as the potential need for comprehensive budgeting despite its political challenges.

The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) assets referendum and the anti-corruption referendum took place alongside the Legislative election in January 2008. The same year, the other national referendums on joining UN and returning to UN were held with the Presidential election in March. In the Legislative election, while 59 percent of electorate voted, turnout rate for the referendums are surprisingly low to 26 percent. In the Presidential election, in spite of a high turnout rate of 76 percent, turnout rate for the referendums are merely 36 percent. What is the reason for people to vote in elections but not on referendums? Partisanship probably explains people¡¦s turnout on referendum, but I suspect that there are more factors. This research provides a framework and a model of voting participation in referendum. Base on my analysis of Taiwan¡¦s Election and Democratization Study(TEDS), I find the following: First, Partisanship is the only factor which affect the referendums in the Legislative election and the Presidential election. However, people¡¦s partisanship reflects their values and leads to take or not to take referendum ballots. Other important factors of referendum voting participation are political interest, identity of Taiwanese or Chinese, What newspaper is used to read, unification-independence issue and perspectives on the relation between President and Legislative Yuan. Second, with identity of Taiwanese or Chinese and unification-independence issue, we could infer that attitudes about referendum issue affect referendum voting participation behavior. Finally, by the electors that prefer to check and balance between the executive power and the legislative power likely decide to take referendum ballots, we could assume that some voters who realize and support referendum system intend to vote on referendum.

Many studies have noted that the conflict between gender and party stereotypes may disadvantage Republican female candidates among some voters. On the other hand, gender and party attachment may also prove advantageous for Republican women in competitive races where moderate and independent voters play an important role. In this paper, the author examines how partisanship and race competitiveness impact how, and if, female candidates choose to emphasize their gendered identity, highlight women’s interests, and pursue a feminine trait strategy on their campaign websites. The author gives special attention to Republican female candidates running in competitive races, and argues that these candidates may have an extra incentive and ability to connect with voters by emphasizing gender. This study uses data collected through a content analysis of the campaign websites of 162 female candidates in the 2014 Congressional midterm election.

<p>This thesis explains the role universal values play in several aspects of American political life.</p> / Dissertation

Even though empirical studies show that political institutions affect various economic policies, standard economic models do not evaluate the effects of government ideology on the performance of state firms. I argue that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are more efficient under center-right governments, while state firms under center-left cabinets show weaker performance. A modified Stackelberg oligopoly competition model that analyzes the proposed connection is developed. I, then, test implications from the model empirically using the case of Lithuania.

The following study is comprised of three essays, each examining a different manner by which race and party impact political participation. Through the analysis of both intra-party primary and inter-party general elections, I find that candidates are more likely to run, and voters are more likely to turn out, when the social groups they belong to comprise a larger portion of the electorate. While race often serves as the key social identity in determining rates of participation, these effects are contingent on partisan forces governing the broader electoral process.

With over 550,000 American lives claimed by COVID-19, over 30 million confirmed infections, and historic job losses across the nation, evaluations of the pandemic response from the Trump Administration have been polarizing. In the eyes of many Americans, President Trump’s Coronavirus response has been lacking in swiftness and efficacy, while many others see the governmental response as competent or having exceeded expectations. In light of previous research, to expect these evaluations to be politically polarized would be reasonable, but at what point do these partisan biases fall away? This survey study will test how partisan biases influence Americans’ evaluations of President Donald Trump’s – and President Biden’s – handling of the Coronavirus pandemic response – factoring in how respondents have been personally affected by the pandemic or personally know someone who has been. These experiences with COVID-19 will be quantified by proximity to loss of life due to, and infection of, COVID-19, as well as job loss as a result of the effects of the virus. As devastating as these experiences may be, I expect the influence of partisan biases to be overwhelmingly correlated with respondents’ evaluations of both President Trump’s and President Biden’s COVID-19 response when compared to the correlation of personal experience. As the findings will suggest, these expectations prove to be accurate; Republicans indicate substantially higher levels of satisfaction with President Trump’s pandemic response when compared to Democrats, with the reverse relationship observed for evaluations of President Biden, and this holds true at all levels of proximity. Further, partisan identity yields a considerably larger magnitude of correlation with these evaluations when compared to personal experience. Unfortunately, Americans do not seem to hold their presidents accountable for their actions (or inaction) by learning from even the most traumatic experiences; party overpowers all else. The findings of this study will greatly enrich the current literature on the extent to which partisan biases influence evaluations of government, and will provide insight into the reliability of democratic accountability, and, resultantly, the very functioning of American democracy.

Affective polarization is a relatively new concept that refers to feelings of sympathy towards partisans of a person's own political party preference and antipathy towards those who vote for and identify with opposing parties. This thesis aims to answer the questions if those who know more about politics also are more affectively polarized, and whether there is a difference between knowing about different types of political facts, and the predicted level of affective polarization. Using panel data from 35 different countries from Module 4 of the Comparative Study of Election Systems, I measure the affective polarization on an individual level, and whether answering correctly to different types of knowledge questions predict the respondents to be more or less affectively polarized. The results show that political knowledge significantly predicts higher levels of affective polarization, but that there is a difference between different types of political knowledge. Political knowledge typically learned from the media has a stronger factor in predicting affective polarization.

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<p>Negative partisanship, which stems from negative affect towards an opposing party, exerts influence on evaluations of democratic performance (see Ridge 2020; Spoon and Kanthak 2019), but we still need to add more pieces to the puzzle of negative partisanship. To contribute to this literature, I examine negative partisans against another group with similar parameters on the negative side of the spectrum. I argue that our partisanship is not unidimensional, negative positions could exist beyond one party, and we could be negatively inclined to more than one party. </p> <p>The experience of democracies is used as a baseline to analyze the systemic effects on satisfaction with democracy over both types of partisans. First, social identities are explored to establish the foundation of the proposed partisans. Findings showed that negative partisans are affected by two motivators: marginalization and a threat to the status quo. In some cases, clear trends were uncovered regardless of the status of democracy, and some others diverged by context and became clearer when democratic settings were explored. Evidence also showed that the regime’s status as consolidated or young democracy plays an important role when negative partisans ponder how their democracy is performing. Finally, when emotional piling happens, satisfaction with democracy is affected negatively due to vulnerability to frustration. </p> <p>The background of the regime is another piece that differentiates negative partisans because democracies built on ideological post-communist regimes are not the same as a background of one-party rule or a military regime. Findings showed that institutional pacts from these regimes through authoritarian successor parties are not as negative in the effects from parties that are the product of the new regime. Also, satisfaction over time certainly makes negative partisans more comfortable with democracies, regardless of the setbacks and even how polarized the systems are. Moreover, systemic elements affect negative partisans’ perception of democracy’s performance through compensatory and non-compensatory mechanisms. Negative partisans behave differently not only in different democratic settings but also when they are following the rules to elect representatives. They are affected more negatively in their satisfaction when their partisanship is stronger or without the influence of a party. This context is exacerbated when the electoral design or system has dynamics that incentivize rivalry compared to “include all” or mixed designs. This study adds elements to the literature of negative partisanship and opens new lines to examine negative partisans worldwide. </p>