The political implications of state political ideology: a measure tested

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  April, 1997  by Marshall H. Medoff

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12. The null hypothesis of equality of ideological mean scores between the Midwest region and each of the other four regions was rejected at the .05 level of statistical significance.

13. The empirical results from SPI4 showed that Republicans are significantly more conservative than Democrats.

14. This assumes that states are captured in a lexicographic manner. Obviously a candidate could capture states having a combination of different political philosophies.

References

Barone, Michael and G. Ujifusa. The Almanac of American Politics 1994. Washington, DC: National Journal, 1993.

Bender, Bruce. "The Influence of Ideology on Congressional Voting." Economic Inquiry, July 1991, 416-28.

Bluhm, William T. Ideologies and Attitudes: Modern Political Culture, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1974.

Converse, Philip E. "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." In David E. Apter, ed. Ideology and Discontent, New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964.

Dougan, William R. and Michael C. Munger. "The Rationality of Ideology." Journal of Law and Economics, Apr. 1989, 119-42.

Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row, 1957.

Higgs, Robert. "Do Legislators' Votes Reflect Constituency Preference? A Simple Way to Evaluate the Senate." Public Choice, 1989, 175-81.

Jackson, John E. and John W. Kingdon. "Ideology, Interest Group Scores, and Legislative Votes." American Journal of Political Science, Aug. 1992, 805-23.

Kalt, Joseph P. and Mark A. Zupan. "Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics." American Economic Review, June 1984, 279-300.

Kau, James B. and Paul H. Rubin. "Self-Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting." Journal of Law and Economics, Oct. 1979, 365-84.

Peltzman, Sam. "Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting." Journal of Law and Economics, Apr. 1984, 181-210.

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U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of the Population: 1990, Congressional Districts of the 103rd Congress. Washington: GPO, 1992.

Joseph A. Schumpeter's Warnings About Ideology

In his presidential address presented to the Sixty-first Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, on December 28, 1948, Schumpeter warned his colleagues about the real dangers of ideology. He stated, "...there exist in our minds preconceptions about the economic process that are much more dangerous to the cumulative growth of our knowledge and the scientific character of our analytic endeavors because they seem beyond our control in a sense in which value judgments and special pleadings are not. Though mostly allied with these, they deserve to be separated from them and to be discussed independently. We shall call them Ideologies." In Schumpeter's Essays on Entrepreneurs, Ideologies, Innovations, Business Cycles, and the Evolution of Capitalism, R. Clemence, ed. (New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1989), p. 274. Perhaps the study of the history of economic thought helps us recognize our preconceptions and ideology.