Suchergebnisse

Over the last half-century, the South has undergone a radical transformation. One aspect of this transformation, the growth of the Republican Party, has produced a viable and competitive twoparty system in the region. Contrary to other studies examining this phenomenon, this study offers an explicitly political explanation—the theory of relative advantage—for the growth of Southern Republicanism. Using a pooled time series methodology to simultaneously examine the implications of this theory, as well as the effect of economic and demographic factors traditionally associated with GOP growth, it is shown that the observed pattern mirrors the expectations of relative advantage theory. In contrast to the existing literature, little support was found for economic or demographic explanations of Republican growth.

Although scholars have studied the item veto and its effects-at the state-level-for years, there is considerable disagreement over the national-level political and fiscal ramifications of the implementation of the item veto. Our analysis is the first empirical examination of the use of the item veto at the federal level. We find that partisan politics and an interest in fiscal austerity played little or no role in the president' decision-making calculus on recent defense appropriations vetoes. Programmatic goals, on the other hand, played a significant role in determining whether or not projects were vetoed.