Comparable Preference Estimates across Time and Institutions for the Court, Congress, and Presidency

Empirically oriented scholars often struggle with how to measure preferences across time and institutional contexts. This article characterizes these difficulties and provides a measurement approach that incorporates information that bridges time and institutions in a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach to ideal point measurement. The resulting preference estimates for presidents, senators, representatives, and Supreme Court justices are comparable across time and institutions. These estimates are useful in a variety of important research projects, including research on statutory interpretation, executive influence on the Supreme Court, and Senate influence on court appointments.

[1]  Michael Bailey,et al.  Ideal Point Estimation with a Small Number of Votes: A Random-Effects Approach , 2001, Political Analysis.

[2]  Charles R. Shipan,et al.  The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: A Theory of Institutional Constraints and Choices , 1999 .

[3]  J. Segal,et al.  Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices , 1998, The Journal of Politics.

[4]  Andrew D. Martin,et al.  Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999 , 2002, Political Analysis.

[5]  K. T. Poole,et al.  Patterns of congressional voting , 1991 .

[6]  K. T. Poole,et al.  Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting , 1997 .

[7]  Kevin A. Clarke.  Testing Nonnested Models of International Relations: Reevaluating Realism , 2001 .

[8]  Jason DeParle.  American dream : three women, ten kids, and a nation's drive to end welfare , 2004 .

[9]  C. Cameron,et al.  Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees: A Neoinstitutional Model , 1990, American Political Science Review.

[10]  Keith T. Poole,et al.  Measuring Bias and Uncertainty in Ideal Point Estimates via the Parametric Bootstrap , 2004, Political Analysis.

[11]  Stephen Ansolabehere,et al.  Candidate Positioning in U.S. House Elections , 2001 .

[12]  Nolan McCarty,et al.  Veto Power and Legislation: An Empirical Analysis of Executive and Legislative Bargaining from 1961 to 1986 , 1995 .

[13]  J. Segal.  Separation-of-Powers Games in the Positive Theory of Congress and Courts , 1997, American Political Science Review.

[14]  J. Segal,et al.  The Changing Dynamics of Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees , 2006, The Journal of Politics.

[15]  Barry R. Weingast,et al.  A positive theory of statutory interpretation , 1992 .

[16]  Joshua D. Clinton,et al.  The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data , 2004, American Political Science Review.

[17]  Barry D. Friedman,et al.  The Limits of Judicial Independence : The Supreme Court ’ s Constitutional Rulings , 1987-2000 , 2004 .

[18]  Adam Meirowitz,et al.  Agenda Constrained Legislator Ideal Points and the Spatial Voting Model , 2001, Political Analysis.

[19]  Michael A. Bailey,et al.  Signals from the Tenth Justice: The Political Role of the Solicitor General in Supreme Court Decision Making , 2005 .

[20]  Michael A. Bailey,et al.  Comparing Presidents, Senators, and Justices: Interinstitutional Preference Estimation , 2001 .

[21]  D. Forte.  Supreme Court Justices , 1973 .

[22]  Joshua A. Salomon,et al.  Enhancing the Validity and Cross-cultural Comparability of Survey Research 1 , 2002 .

[23]  Keith T. Poole,et al.  Spatial Models of Parliamentary Voting , 2005 .

[24]  P. Giannelli.  United States Supreme Court: 2000 Term , 2000 .

[25]  Barry D. Friedman,et al.  Pulling Punches: Congressional Constraints on the Supreme Court's Constitutional Rulings, 1987-2000 , 2006 .

[26]  Keith T. Poole,et al.  RECOVERING A BASIC SPACE FROM A SET OF ISSUE SCALES , 1998 .

[27]  John Londregan,et al.  Estimating Legislators' Preferred Points , 1999, Political Analysis.

[28]  C. Murray,et al.  Enhancing the Validity and Cross-Cultural Comparability of Measurement in Survey Research , 2003, American Political Science Review.

[29]  W. Greene,et al.  计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis , 2009 .

[30]  Steven D. Levitt,et al.  Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress , 1999, American Political Science Review.