{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/46833"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/46833","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Congressional primaries and legislative behavior","abstract":"Are competitive elections “good” for democracy? Competitive elections are said to symbolize the health of democracy, and their absence thus challenges the viability of the political system. But, there are actually competing expectations about the consequences of competition on representation. Close elections may increase reelection-oriented legislators’ responsiveness to the interests of their constituents. However, time, effort, and resources spent campaigning in the district means time taken away from governing in Washington DC. Further, the increased focus on legislators’ reelection constituencies may drive them to be less likely to pursue the interests of the district as a whole, particularly in primary elections where the reelection constituency is the party base. I investigate how primary competition affects legislators’ volume of activity, the issue content of this activity, and their levels of party loyalty. Using primary election data from the 1998-2008 election cycles and legislative behavior data from the 105th - 110th Congresses, my analyses compare the legislative behavior of MCs with and without primary opponents, the behavior of legislators before and during the primary election, and MCs’ behavior across Congresses. In turn, this provides insight into how primary competition affects legislative behavior, and, equally important, whether it promotes representation and responsiveness.","abstract_html":"Are competitive elections “good” for democracy? Competitive elections are said to symbolize the health of democracy, and their absence thus challenges the viability of the political system. But, there are actually competing expectations about the consequences of competition on representation. Close elections may increase reelection-oriented legislators’ responsiveness to the interests of their constituents. However, time, effort, and resources spent campaigning in the district means time taken away from governing in Washington DC. Further, the increased focus on legislators’ reelection constituencies may drive them to be less likely to pursue the interests of the district as a whole, particularly in primary elections where the reelection constituency is the party base. I investigate how primary competition affects legislators’ volume of activity, the issue content of this activity, and their levels of party loyalty. Using primary election data from the 1998-2008 election cycles and legislative behavior data from the 105th - 110th Congresses, my analyses compare the legislative behavior of MCs with and without primary opponents, the behavior of legislators before and during the primary election, and MCs’ behavior across Congresses. In turn, this provides insight into how primary competition affects legislative behavior, and, equally important, whether it promotes representation and responsiveness.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Schmitt, Carly"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Political Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Sulkin, Tracy E.","Bernhard, William T.","Kuklinski, James H.","Sin, Gisela"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2014,"date_issued":"2014-01-16T18:17:46Z","date_published":"2014-01-16T18:17:46Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:38Z","subjects":["Congress","Legislative Behavior","Congressional Primaries"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2013 Carly Schmitt"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46833","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Sulkin, Tracy E.","Bernhard, William T.","Kuklinski, James H.","Sin, Gisela"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Schmitt, Carly"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2014-01-16T18:17:46Z","2016-01-16T11:02:07Z","2013-12"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Political Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Congress","Legislative Behavior","Congressional Primaries"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2013 Carly Schmitt"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46833"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Are competitive elections “good” for democracy? 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Using primary election data from the 1998-2008 election cycles and legislative behavior data from the 105th - 110th Congresses, my analyses compare the legislative behavior of MCs with and without primary opponents, the behavior of legislators before and during the primary election, and MCs’ behavior across Congresses. In turn, this provides insight into how primary competition affects legislative behavior, and, equally important, whether it promotes representation and responsiveness.","Item withdrawn by Laura Spradlin (lspradl2@illinois.edu) on 2013-11-27T17:38:58Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Schmitt Dissertation.docx: 443987 bytes, checksum: d1f8b56db15821e5c9c67651616079eb (MD5) Schmitt_Carly.pdf: 1382372 bytes, checksum: a106b3656a02ae528b18256a370a8a61 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2014-01-16T18:17:46Z (GMT). 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