Jane Green and Will Jennings University of Manchester Measuring and Analysing Mood in Party and Government Competence Evaluations in the U.K. and U.S.A. Nuffield College, March 6, 2012

 What should the characteristics of party competence be at the aggregate-level?  What shapes party competence ratings? Do we need macro-competence, if we have partisanship, economic indicators & evaluations, events and PM/presidential approval?  How might the explanation and the consequences of macro-competence vary across institutional settings?  Can - and should – macro-competence be added to our understanding of the macro-polity? 2 Research Questions

 Valence and position issues (Stokes 1963)  Misnomer; issues change over time; it depends on framing  Policy handling questions largely ignored, until recently  Strong evidence that these are performance driven  Competence ratings are endogenous  Economic performance and evaluations  Prime Ministerial/Presidential approval  Party identification and bias  Competence ratings will exhibit common variance  Performance cues as information about trustworthiness  Salient performance cues as transferable information  Reinforced by cycles in government popularity (governing costs) Theorising about Competence at the Macro (and Micro) Level

1. Data and Estimation of Mood in Competence 2. Macro-Competence in the UK and USA: validation 3. Modeling Macro-Competence and the Vote (US) 4. Implications and Conclusions

 U.K.  1950 – 2008: 2,383 items for party ‘best able to handle’ and relative handling questions  Gallup, Ipsos-Mori, Populus, YouGov, BES.  U.S.A.  1948 – 2010: 2,512 items for party ‘better job’ handling and general performance questions  Gallup, AP/Ipsos, ABC/Washington Post, NBC/Wall Street Journal, YouGov/Polimetrix, NES Data

 How much variance is shared with the latent dimension, smoothed for sampling error and sampling fluctuations.  A solution in circumstances where 85% of all possible values are missing and where the distribution of data is irregular over time (Stimson 2004).  Dyad comparisons for competence ratings, using a recursive metric, and an estimated weight for common variance of competence ratings with ‘mood’. Mood as a weighted moving average of past and future values

Macro-Competence in the UK and the USA: a validation 7

54% common variation63% common variation

*p≤0.05, **p≤0.01, ***p≤0.001 Start = 1950, End = 2008

67% common variation51% common variation

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Competence and Macro-Partisanship UK Granger-causation between macro-competence and macro-partisanship

Competence and Macro-Partisanship US Granger-causation between macro-competence and macro-partisanship

Macro-Competence in the USA: further validation and analysis 19

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 Is macro-competence responsive to existing measures of performance evaluations (i.e. congressional approval, presidential approval) and macro-partisanship?  Does the interaction of congressional approval and share of the House of Representatives have an effect on macro-competence for the opposition party?  Does governing party competence drive opposition party competence?  What does macro-competence add to models of party support in the US?

Macro-competence for governing and opposition parties

 How quickly do shocks persist or dissipate?  If shocks to the reputation of parties due to good or bad performance last indefinitely, public opinion on valence is an integrated process, and if shocks dissipate quickly, it is stationary: determines the degree to which parties are forgiven for past mistakes and mismanagement.  Degree of fractional integration estimated with the Robinson (1995) multivariate semiparametric method, which calculates the value d for macro-competence: equal to 0.56 for the governing party series and 0.71 for the opposition, with the t- statistic indicating these values, as with the covariates, are significantly different from zero.  Fractionally difference the series to avoid spurious estimates.

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d Macro-Competence = + d ECM (residuals: cointegrating regression) + d Congressional Approval + d Share of House of Representatives + d Congressional approval x House share + d Presidential Approval + d Macro-Partisanship + d Consumer Sentiment

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d Congressional Ballot = + d ECM (residuals: cointegrating regression) + d Congressional Approval + d Share of House of Representatives + d Congressional Approval x House share + d Presidential Approval + d Macro-Partisanship + d Consumer Sentiment + Macro-competence residuals (gov) t-1 + Macro-competence residuals (gov) t + Macro-competence residuals (opp) t

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 Public opinion on party competence is consistent with a mood about valence in the U.S., (and in the U.K.).  Macro-competence is explained by existing performance variables; these variables (and the ECM) explain between 36% and 43% of variance in macro-competence.  Some evidence that macro-competence is demonstrated in the legislature, for the party in power (as a function of House share).  In a very conservative estimate of the short-run effects of valence, this variable, macro-competence, explains 8-9% of variance in party support (and 3-9% in the U.K.).  Macro-competence is important in the U.S., where it serves as an especially important series for the valence of the opposition; suggesting that the out-party can do relatively little to shape its competence, but its competence is highly important to the vote. 33 Summary

34 Implications  Competence matters over time and in context.  Potential applications of the measure for models of vote choice and electoral forecasting.  Construct of macro-competence is relevant to parties and elites who wish to establish a reputation for competence.  Future questions:  Does competence contribute to polarization or moderation of party positions?  Does competence enable parties to widen the issue agenda of their campaigns?  How do governing parties seek to bolster their reputation for competence when in power?  Does the context of policy responsibility mediate the effects of policy competence?

Jane Green and Will Jennings University of Manchester Measuring and Analysing Mood in Party and Government Competence Evaluations in the U.K. and U.S.A. Nuffield College, March 6, 2012

 Economic issues and valence  Macro-competence is not a product of economic questions (best party on the economy); these items compose a small proportion of each measure; including or excluding them makes no substantive difference; economic evaluations load onto the same dimension similarly to other policy issues.  Position issues and valence  Ratings on positional issues are still competence-based; they are not positively associated with public policy mood; they co-vary with other issues; their inclusion or exclusion makes no substantive difference to our results.  Public policy mood and valence  We are exploring the dynamics of thermostatic mood for another paper, but in all our models public policy mood is not simply a function of valence, or vice versa. Validity considerations

 Presidential approval and Prime Ministerial approval  Former: used as a short cut for approval of government handling  Latter: assumed to be concerned primarily with the individual  Time series of ‘government approval’ in UK  Continuous leader ratings for the opposition in the U.K.  Partisanship as an orienting heuristic for competence  Assume stronger in the U.S. in general, but important in both, especially given the difficulty in answering issue handling questions.  The role of parties and reputations for competence  Stronger in the U.K., where the opposition party can win or lose ‘competence’ by its actions, leader and emphasis, but important in U.S.  Party in government and party out of power  Analysis is focused upon parties in the U.K.  Strong emphasis on party in government (President) in the U.S.  Consideration of out-party as function of share of House Valence: U.S. & U.K.

Valence and Macro-Partisanship (USA) Granger Causation Tests between Valence and Macro-partisanship

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Start: 1950 End: 2008 N=59

41 ADL Model of Events on Macro-Competence, U.K. Start 1979 Q3 End 2008 Q4 N=118

Start 1979 Q3 End 2008 Q4 N=118 An Error Correction Model of Macro-Competence, U.K.

Start 1979 Q3 End 2008 Q4 N=118 An Error Correction Model of Vote Intention, U.K.

Liberals macro-competence 70% common variation in all issue ratings