POLI 100B CONGRESS
31 January 2006

  1. Summary: Economic Changes During the 20th Century

    1. A Near Quadrupling of Real Per-Capita GDP Since World War II

    2. Rising Inequality of Income Since the mid-1970s

    3. Rising Real Standard of Living due Steep fall in the Real Prices of Ordinary Consumer Goods

    4. A Major Increase in the Percentage of Foreign Born Since 1965



  2. The Spatial (Geometric) Model of Voting and Party Competition: Theory



    1. Figure 1.1 (Stewart): Competition for Customers Between Two Shop Owners



    2. Figure 1.2 (Stewart): Competition for Two Candidates for Votes



    3. Figure 1.3 (Stewart): Voting in a Committee over Two Minimum Wage Proposals, X and Y



    4. Figure 1.4 (Stewart): Quadratic Utility Function



    5. Figure 2.2 (Poole and Rosenthal) Normal Distribution Utility Function



    6. Two Fundamental Types of Utility Functions



    7. Utility Functions of Extremists



    8. Figure 1.10 (Stewart): Two Dimensional Quadratic Utility Function



    9. Two Dimensional Quadratic Utility Function (Ordeshook)



    10. Indifference Curves Over Two Issue Dimensions



    11. Figure 1.11 (Stewart): Examples of Indifference Curves



    12. Bivariate Normal Utility Function (Animated GIF)

    13. Figure 1.18 (Stewart): Example of Different Salience Weights



    14. Indifference Curves Over Two Issue Dimensions (Correlated Dimensions)



    15. Bivariate Normal Utility Function (Correlated Dimensions) (Animated GIF)

    16. Roll Call Voting on One Basic Dimension -- How Issue Mappings Occur



    17. Roll Call Voting on Two Basic Dimensions -- How Issue Mappings Occur



  3. Estimating Spatial (Geometric) Maps of Voting and Party Competition

    1. Driving Distances Between Cities

                   ATLANTA BOISE BSTN  CHIC  CINN DALLAS DENV   LA  MIAMI   WDC CASBS

ATLANTA        0000  2340  1084   715   481   826  1519  2252   662   641  2450
BOISE          2340  0000  2797  1789  2018  1661   891   908  2974  2480   680
BOSTON         1084  2797  0000   976   853  1868  2008  3130  1547   443  3160
CHICAGO         715  1789   976  0000   301   936  1017  2189  1386   696  2200
CINCINNATI      481  2018   853   301  0000   988  1245  2292  1143   498  2330
DALLAS          826  1661  1868   936   988  0000   797  1431  1394  1414  1720
DENVER         1519   891  2008  1017  1245   797  0000  1189  2126  1707  1290
LOS ANGELES    2252   908  3130  2189  2292  1431  1189  0000  2885  2754   370
MIAMI           662  2974  1547  1386  1143  1394  2126  2885  0000  1096  3110
WASHINGTON      641  2480   443   696   498  1414  1707  2754  1096  0000  2870
CASBS          2450   680  3160  2200  2330  1720  1290   370  3110  2870  0000


    2. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Map From Driving Distances



    3. Agreement Scores Between Members of Congress

      90th Senate (1967-68) Agreement Scores

      108th Senate (2003-04) Agreement Scores

    4. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Map From 90th Senate Agreement Scores



    5. The Ideological Structure of Congressional Voting

    6. Animated GIF of Congresses 1 - 107

    7. The 80th (1947-48) Congress US Map (Blue = Democrat, Red = Republican)



    8. The 100th (1987-88) Congress US Map (Red = Democrat, Blue = Republican)



    9. The 2000 Presidential Election



    10. The 2004 Presidential Election



  4. The Polarization of American Politics