John R. Hibbing’s research while affiliated with University of Nebraska–Lincoln and other places

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Publications (7)


Legislative Careers: Why and How We Should Study Them
  • Article

May 1999

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52 Reads

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137 Citations

Legislative Studies Quarterly

John R. Hibbing

Legislative careers can provide extremely useful information on political institutions, but only if used wisely. For example, we cannot assume that the amount of membership turnover in a legislature is an indication of the degree to which it is institutionalized. The real variable of interest is the (unfortunately much more difficult to quantify) consequences of that turnover. And even if we can determine that the consequences of legislative turnover are minimal, we cannot conclude that the legislature is institutionalized since what appears to be legislative institutionalization may actually be the institutionalization of political parties. More accurate indications of institutionalization would be the tendency of members to want to stay in the body (regardless of whether or not they do), and the length of service in the body required before leadership positions become a real possibility.


Modern Congressional Election Theory Meets the 1992 House Elections

December 1994

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15 Reads

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16 Citations

Political Research Quarterly

Sunil Ahuja

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Staci L. Beavers

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Cynthia Berreau

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[...]

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John R. Hibbing

The events surrounding the 1992 congressional elections—the check-kiting scandal, the last opportunity to convert campaign funds to personal funds, redistricting, and a public allegedly soured on Congress subsequent to pay raises, scandals, and the Thomas-Hill hearings-provided a unique oppor tunity to test the prevailing models of congressional elections. In this research, we analyze the forces that contributed to the coming of 110 new members to the 103rd Congress. Our conclusion is that, while some aspects of the 1992 elections were unusual, the basic statutes of modem congressional election theory still apply if some needed, friendly amendments are added. Candidates continued to behave strategically, for example, but 1992 indicates the importance of developing the concept of strategic behavior for incumbents as well as challengers.


A Democratic Legislature in the MakingThe Historic Hungarian Elections of 1990

January 1992

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9 Reads

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41 Citations

Comparative Political Studies

Changes in the rules of the electoral game in established political systems normally can bring about marginal shifts in partisan biases, but in the early days of fragile, new democracies, the electoral law carries great significance. The historic March-April 1990 elections in Hungary provide an opportunity to investigate the political effects of a system that merges single-member and proportional selection of parliamentarians. This system led to the impressive electoral victory of the Hungarian (Magyar) Democratic Forum (MDF). The authors analyze the electoral biases that contributed to the MDF victory and, by the same token, to the fate of the other political parties. They evaluate the electoral system in light of its probable consequences for effective democratic government in Hungary.


Contours of the Modern Congressional Career

June 1991

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10 Reads

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57 Citations

American Political Science Association

In the last 40 years careerism has hit Congress full force, yet we do not know much about the pros and cons of lengthy congressional careers. I describe the changes typically occurring over the course of extended stays in Congress and then show that these contours have shifted over the decades such that for most aspects of congressional service (electoral support, formal positions held, and constituency attention) there is less differentiation between a member's early and late career stages than there used to be. However, a major exception exists to the diminution of life cycle effects in Congress: pure legislative involvement (raw levels of activity combined with the extent to which a member's legislative agenda is focused and efficient), despite widely held beliefs about the death of apprenticeship, is now more than ever dependent on tenure. In relative terms, junior members are less legislatively involved than they were a few decades ago. While many portions of congressional service are now routinized from the beginning, legislative involvement comes not just with a subcommittee chair but only with experience. This finding has clear implications both for proposals to limit congressional terms and for perceptions of congressional careerism in general.


The Modern United States Senate: What is Accorded Respect

February 1990

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10 Reads

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18 Citations

The Journal of Politics

The modern U.S. Senate is often seen as being hopelessly personalistic and little concerned with such quaint standards as party discipline, loyalty to the institution, and improving public policy. In this paper, by determining the specific behaviors and traits that are associated with respect, we attempt to test the veracity of these widely-held beliefs. Our measure of respect was obtained from a survey of top-level staffers, and our efforts to explain variations in respect for senators were based on such variables as use of the frank, number of trips home, support for the president, support for the party, ideology (as displayed in roll call behavior), legislative specialization, success in moving legislation, seniority, and presidential ambitions. The results support the notion that respect, for the most part, is accorded to senators who are involved with substantive legislative activities and who are not overly preoccupied with external actors such as constituents and the president. More surprisingly, perhaps, rather than being viewed with suspicion, senators who are media-savvy and interested in seeking the presidency are accorded additional respect in the modern Senate.


Representing A Territory: Constituency Boundaries for the British House of Commons of the 1980s

November 1986

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1 Read

The Journal of Politics

In 1983, the boundary lines for constituencies of the British House of Commons were revised in the light of major shifts in population since the previous redistribution of seats. A massive proportion—nearly 90 percent—of the parliamentary constituencies were changed in some way. In this analysis of the 1983 redistribution, we examine why some constituencies have so many more people than others. Our models include a variety of independent variables impinging upon “redistribution biases”—country (England, Scotland, Wales), rounding error in assigning seats, population density, and the dominant political party in constituencies. All these variables are found to play a part in the decisions of the boundary commissions. However, although “political” in certain ways, we detected no significant direct partisan influences in the 1983 redistribution of seats.


Economic Conditions and the Forgotten Side of Congress: A Foray into US Senate Elections

October 1982

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10 Reads

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28 Citations

British Journal of Political Science

The 1980 American national elections produced two highly salient and widely-discussed departures from past tradition. For the first time in forty-eight years, a previously elected incumbent president seeking re-election was defeated. At the same time the Republicans, the traditional minority party, seized control of the upper house. Both events figured heavily in discussions of the American electorate's supposed turn to the right. Much of this emphasis on ideological change may be misplaced. A third, although much less noted, departure from tradition also occurred in 1980: for the first time since 1932, real disposable per capita income declined in the year preceding a presidential election. The importance of such a decline for the electoral fate of an incumbent president has been well documented. Numerous previous studies have indicated a powerful and consistent impact of changes in economic conditions on voting behaviour in presidential elections. The influence of economic conditions on the fate of the president's party in House elections is also well-documented. In the case of Senate elections, however, the literature is curiously silent.

Citations (6)


... Seria mais difícil captar as cofounders que podem interferir na tomada de decisão quando um partido ou um parlamentar de suas fileiras decide por um caminho em detrimento de outro. Essa decisão pode estar relacionada com a possibilidade de reeleição do próprio parlamentar, com a necessidade do partido se manter ativo captando recursos estatais, de acordos ocultos entre partidos e/ou grupos parlamentares ou ainda de constrangimentos institucionais que regem o comportamento das legendas quando no Legislativo ou o Executivo (Hibbing, 1999;Carey et al., 2000;Carroll, 2013). ...

Reference:

Como medir ideologia partidária?
Legislative Careers: Why and How We Should Study Them
  • Citing Article
  • May 1999

Legislative Studies Quarterly

... Este último tema es de la mayor relevancia pues la atención de la ciencia política suele sesgarse hacia los plenos y las comisiones y poco se analiza el importante papel que tienen el personal de apoyo parlamentario, la investigación parlamentaria y las demás estructuras de apoyo como los canales de comunicación como la televisión y radio parlamentarias o el uso de las tecnologías por parte de los parlamentos y que son fundamentales para reconstruir la relación y cercanía con la ciudadanía (Leston-Bandeira y Siefken, 2023; Bárcena y Kerevel, 2021). También ha habido escaso interés en los grupos parlamentarios (Morales, 1990;Smith, 2012) o las reglas internas (Huitt y Peabody, 1969;Hibbing, 1991). ...

Contours of the Modern Congressional Career
  • Citing Article
  • June 1991

American Political Science Association

... 2 The four democratic parliaments in Central Europe began their very different transitions from communist rule in the compressed 1989 -90 period. Perhaps Hungary had the only genuine single 'founding' election among all the post-communist states (Hibbing and Patterson 1992). The other three countries had not a single 'founding' election, but rather, an initial breakaway election in a series of decade-long steps resulting in their current political systems and parliaments (Olson 1993, Bunce 2003, Tworzecki 2003, Nalewajko and Wesołowski 2008. ...

A Democratic Legislature in the MakingThe Historic Hungarian Elections of 1990
  • Citing Article
  • January 1992

Comparative Political Studies

... A fourth and fifth factor is the performance of the national and state economies. A significant body of research finds that national and state economic conditions shape gubernatorial and U.S. Senate election outcomes (Adams and Kenny 1989;Bennett and Wiseman 1991;Chubb 1988;Hibbing and Alford 1982;Levernier 1992;Niemi et al. 1995;Peltzman 1987). It is important to account for economic performance as a confounding factor because of the possibility of a "glass cliff" effect, which refers to the possibility that minority candidates tend to run during economic hard times when the position may be less attractive to white candidates (Kulich et al. 2014). ...

Economic Conditions and the Forgotten Side of Congress: A Foray into US Senate Elections
  • Citing Article
  • October 1982

British Journal of Political Science

... 107-108). Indeed, in a world where legislative (or, more generally, policy) accomplishments are associated with institutional power and political prestige, public officials may very well feel the need to avoid devoting " too much " time to their constituency (Caldeira and Patterson 1988; Hibbing and Thomas 1990; Caldeira, Clark, and Patterson 1993; Reingold 2000, 105-106). ...

The Modern United States Senate: What is Accorded Respect
  • Citing Article
  • February 1990

The Journal of Politics