The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures

Social identity voting (SIV) is a new model of voting behavior based on the principles of social identity theory. We introduce and use this model to analyze roll call votes for the 35 th through 112 th US Congresses. Comparing out-of-sample accuracy of SIV and Poole and Rosenthal’s Weighted NOMINAL...

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Main Authors: Scott D Pauls, Greg Leibon, Daniel Rockmore
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2015-04-01
Series:Research & Politics
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168015570415
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spelling doaj-bf6a3b4e7903480f8e984e38f4926cbd2020-11-25T02:50:41ZengSAGE PublishingResearch & Politics2053-16802015-04-01210.1177/205316801557041510.1177_2053168015570415The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structuresScott D Pauls0Greg Leibon1Daniel Rockmore2Department of Mathematics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USADepartment of Mathematics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USADepartment of Mathematics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA; Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA; The Santa Fe Institute, USASocial identity voting (SIV) is a new model of voting behavior based on the principles of social identity theory. We introduce and use this model to analyze roll call votes for the 35 th through 112 th US Congresses. Comparing out-of-sample accuracy of SIV and Poole and Rosenthal’s Weighted NOMINAL Three-step Estimation (W-NOMINATE), we find that SIV performs better than the one- or two-dimensional W-NOMINATE model and that generally, W-NOMINATE needs up to 10 dimensions to produce accuracy comparable to that of SIV. The differences between SIV and W-NOMINATE are further clarified in three case studies: first, a longitudinal examination of all Congresses; second, an analysis of the 112 th House of Representatives; and third, a study of the Tea Party caucus in the 112 th House of Representatives. Each study sheds new light on the potential motivations driving voting behavior, supporting our assertion that the SIV and W-NOMINATE models provide two distinct approaches to understanding voting records. SIV, with its emphasis on political identity derived from group membership, expresses combinations of individual and group preferences which contribute to legislators’ ideological classifications.https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168015570415
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Scott D Pauls
Greg Leibon
Daniel Rockmore
spellingShingle Scott D Pauls
Greg Leibon
Daniel Rockmore
The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures
Research & Politics
author_facet Scott D Pauls
Greg Leibon
Daniel Rockmore
author_sort Scott D Pauls
title The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures
title_short The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures
title_full The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures
title_fullStr The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures
title_full_unstemmed The social identity voting model: Ideology and community structures
title_sort social identity voting model: ideology and community structures
publisher SAGE Publishing
series Research & Politics
issn 2053-1680
publishDate 2015-04-01
description Social identity voting (SIV) is a new model of voting behavior based on the principles of social identity theory. We introduce and use this model to analyze roll call votes for the 35 th through 112 th US Congresses. Comparing out-of-sample accuracy of SIV and Poole and Rosenthal’s Weighted NOMINAL Three-step Estimation (W-NOMINATE), we find that SIV performs better than the one- or two-dimensional W-NOMINATE model and that generally, W-NOMINATE needs up to 10 dimensions to produce accuracy comparable to that of SIV. The differences between SIV and W-NOMINATE are further clarified in three case studies: first, a longitudinal examination of all Congresses; second, an analysis of the 112 th House of Representatives; and third, a study of the Tea Party caucus in the 112 th House of Representatives. Each study sheds new light on the potential motivations driving voting behavior, supporting our assertion that the SIV and W-NOMINATE models provide two distinct approaches to understanding voting records. SIV, with its emphasis on political identity derived from group membership, expresses combinations of individual and group preferences which contribute to legislators’ ideological classifications.
url https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168015570415
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