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48 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 1 (2004)

handle is hein.journals/amjorpolisci48 and id is 1 raw text is: The Responsible Party Government Model in House and Senate Elections David R. JoneS Baruch College, City University of New York Monika L. McDermott University of Connecticut Responsibleparty government theory requires that voters holdparties electorally accountablefor theirperformance in control of government. Existing literature suggests that voters do this only to a limited extent-holding the presidential party's candidates responsible for government performance on Election Day. While this method of voting may hold the executive accountable for his performance, it is not really an effective way to hold the party in control of Congress accountable for its performance. The method falls short particularly when Congress is controlled by a different party than the president, but also whenever a Congress controlled by the same party pursues policies differentfrom thepresident's. Using surveys of voters leaving the polls in the 1990, 1994, and 1998 midterm congressional elections, this study tests whether voters' evaluations of Congress'sjob performance also affect their supportfor majority party candidates in House and Senate elections, during both unified and divided government. n the normative theory of responsible party govern- ment, elections are mechanisms crucial to enforcing party responsibility. According to Austin Ranney's classic work, The Doctrine of Responsible Party Govern- ment, party government in its ideal form should work such that when a party has been in power, at the next election the people decide whether they approve of the general direction the party in power has been taking-in short, whether their wants are being satisfied. If the an- swer is yes, they return that party to power; if the answer is no, they replace it with the opposition party (1954, 12).1 If voters behave along these lines, members of the party in power have more of an incentive to cooperate in order to accomplish collective policy goals. If voters cannot or do not hold the partyin power accountable, then individuals in government are likely to feel freer to act in ways that serve only their own narrow goals-goals that may come at the expense of the collective good (Mayhew 1974). Scholars have argued that two key features of the American system of government make it difficult for vot- ers to hold the ruling parties in our government responsi- ble (Cutler 1988; Fiorina 1996, 109-11; Sundquist 1988). While it can be relatively easy to do so when party con- trol of government is unified and when parties are cohe- sive, our system does not guarantee either of these two conditions. During divided government voters who are unhappy with the policy achievements of government will have difficulty deciding which party to reject: the party in control of Congress or the party in control of the White House. In addition-since Mayhew (1991) finds that legislative achievements can be just as common dur- ing divided government as unified-voters who agree with the policies enacted or results achieved by divided government will have difficulty deciding which party to embrace.2 Since parties are not always cohesive, even uni- fied government presents potential problems for voters. David R. Jones is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Baruch College, City University of New York, Box B 5-280, One Bernard Baruch Way, New York, NY 10010 (David-Jonesl@baruch.cuny.edu). Monika L. McDermott is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut, 341 Mansfield Road, U- 1024, Storrs, CT 06269-1024 (monika.mcdermott@uconn.edu). The order of the authors' names is not related to contribution. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, Chase Harrison, Lyle Scruggs, Mike Alvarez, and Garrett Glasgowfor their help and advice, and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research for access to these data. Any mistakes are the sole responsibility of the authors. 'We view this description as largely consistent with the performance evaluation measures discussed in the literature review and used in the subsequent analysis. For a review of the literature on party government, see Sundquist (1988). 2For example, consider a voter in 1998 who is pleased with financial conditions or who supports the balanced budget agreement reached between the Democratic president and the Republican Congress. American Journal ofPolitical Science, Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2004, Pp. 1-12 02004 by the Midwest Political Science Association ISSN 0092-5853 1