Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:27:08.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Measuring Governors' Political Orientations Using Words as Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Micah Weinberg
Micah Weinberg*
Affiliation:
The New America Foundation
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article introduces a parsimonious measure of the expressed political orientation of U.S. state governors that compares word choices in their “State of the State” speeches to the language of state and national party platforms. The technique used to generate this measure is Wordscores, a method that relies on the use of reference texts to generate a set of ideal points for gubernatorial rhetoric. I discuss the conventions and substantive content of governors' speeches and the choice of party platforms as reference texts before presenting the average “partisan signal” in speeches by 97 governors in all 50 states between 2000 and 2006.

Type
The Practical Researcher
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 96 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barth, Jay, and Ferguson, Margaret R.. 2002. “American Governors and Their Constituents: The Relationship Between Gubernatorial Personality and Public Approval.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 2:268–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, William D., Ringquist, Evan J., Fording, Richard C., and Hanson, Russell L.. 1998. “Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the American States, 1960–93.” American Journal of Political Science 41:327–48.Google Scholar
Black, Earl, and Black, Merle. 2002. The Rise of Southern Republicans. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University.Google Scholar
Coffey, Daniel. 2005. “Measuring Gubernatorial Ideology: A Content Analysis of State of the State Speeches.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5:88–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coffey, Daniel. 2007. “State Party Activists and State Party Polarization.” In The State of the Parties: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Parties, 5th ed., eds., Green, John C. and Coffey, Daniel. Boulder, CO: Rowan and Littlefield.Google Scholar
DiLeo, Daniel. 1997. “Dynamic Representation in the United States: Effects of the Public Mood on Governors' Agendas.” State and Local Government Review 29:98–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiLeo, Daniel. 2001. “To Develop or to Redistribute? An Analysis of the Content of Governors' Agendas.” State and Local Government Review 33:52–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Wright, Gerald C., and McIver, John P.. 1993. Statehouse Democracy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Stanley. 1988. “Structure and Consistency in Public Opinion: The Role of Core Beliefs and Values.” American Journal of Political Science 32(2):416–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Margaret R. 2003. “Chief Executive Success in the Legislative Arena.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 3:158–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Margaret R., and Barth, Jay. 2002. “Governors in the Legislative Arena: The Importance of Personality in Shaping Success.” Political Psychology 23:787–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P., Abrams, Samuel J., and Pope, Jeremy C.. 2005. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. New York, NY: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Herzik, Eric B. 1991. “Policy Agendas and Gubernatorial Leadership.” In Gubernatorial Leadership and State Policy, eds., Herzik, Eric B. and Brown, Brent W.. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert A., and Carsey, Thomas M.. 1999. “Group Components of U.S. Presidential Voting Across the States.” Political Behavior 21:123–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael, and Benoit, Kenneth. 2002. “Locating TDs in Policy Spaces: Wordscoring Daily Speeches.” Irish Political Studies 17(1):59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael, Benoit, Kenneth, and Garry, John. 2003. “Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data.” American Political Science Review 97:311–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael, Benoit, Kenneth, and Sauger, Nicolas. 2006. “Policy Competition in the 2002 French Legislative and Presidential Elections.” European Journal of Political Research 45(4):667–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Lanny W., and Vanberg, Georg. 2008. “A Robust Transformation Procedure for Interpreting Political Text.” Political Analysis 16:93–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, Nolan, Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 2006. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McGuire, Kevin T., and Vanberg, Georg. 2005. “Mapping the Policies of the U.S. Supreme Court: Data, Opinions, and Constitutional Law.” Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September.Google Scholar
Monroe, Burt, Colaresi, Michael, and Quinn, Kevin M.. 2008 “Fightin' Words: Lexical Feature Selection and Evaluation for Identifying the Content of Political Conflict.” Political Analysis 16(4):372–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monroe, Burt, and Maeda, Ko. 2004. “Talk's Cheap: Text-based Estimation of Rhetorical Ideal-Points.” Typescript. Michigan State University.Google Scholar
Ranney, Austin. 1976. “Parties in State Politics.” In Politics in the American States, 3rd ed., eds., Jacob, Herbert and Vines, Kenneth. Boston, MA: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Porter, Martin F. 1980. “An Algorithm for Suffix Stripping.” Program 14:130–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Michael W. 2007. “The Utility of Staying on Message: Competing Partisan Frames and Public Awareness of Elite Differences on Political Issues.” The Forum 5:8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, Micah. 2008. “The Impact of the Partisan Signal in Gubernatorial Speech on Job Approval Ratings and Incumbent Voteshares.” Typescript. University of North Carolina.Google Scholar