With a pioneering application of probability models in political science, Stokes and Iversen established “the existence of forces restoring party competition.” Whatever the margin of victory in a given election, the partisan vote subsequently tends to return to the point of equal division. The authors introduce an expanded test of electoral equilibrium that allows for effects of major realignments and regional differences, using congressional elections since 1828. They find that the vote division gravitates to the mean but that the mean vote, in most periods of American history and in several regions, departs significantly from the point of equal division and in some instances is prone to a pronounced drift. Hence, during much of their lifetime, many Americans do not experience, in congressional elections, party competition that gives the opposition much of a chance to win.
Black, Earl.1998. The newest Southern politics. Journal of Politics60 (3): 591-612.
2.
Burnham, Walter Dean.1970. Critical elections and the main-springs of American politics . New York: Norton.
3.
Campbell, Angus.1966. A classification of presidential elections. In Elections and the political order, ed. A. Campbell, P. E. Converse, W. E. Miller, and D. E. Stokes, 63-77. New York: Wiley.
4.
Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes .1960. The American voter. New York: Wiley.
5.
Clubb, Jerome M., William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale .1990. Partisan realignment: Voters, parties, and government in American history. A Westview encore ed. Boulder, CO: Westview.
6.
Converse, Philip E.1966. The concept of a normal vote. In Elections and the political order, ed. A. Campbell, P. E. Converse, W. E. Miller, and D. E. Stokes, 9-39. New York : Wiley.
7.
Dickey, David A., William R. Bell, and Robert A. Miller .1986. Unit roots in time series models: Tests and implications. The American Statistician40:12-27.
8.
Downs, Anthony.1957. An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
9.
Erikson, Robert S.1988. The puzzle of midterm loss. Journal of Politics50 (4): 1011-29.
10.
Key, V.O., Jr.1955. A theory of critical elections. Journal of Politics17 (1): 3-18.
11.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet.1948. The people’s choice: How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.
12.
Lewis-Beck, Michael S., William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth, and Herbert F. Weisberg .2008. The American voter revisited . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
13.
Mayhew, David R.2002. Electoral realignments: A critique of an American genre . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
14.
Meffert, Michael F., Helmut Norpoth, and Anirudh V. S. Ruhil .2001. Realignment and macropartisanship . American Political Science Review95 (4): 953-62.
15.
Miller, Warren E., and J. Merrill Shanks .1996. The new American voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16.
Nardulli, Peter F.1995. The concept of a critical realignment, electoral behavior, and political change. American Political Science Review89 (1): 10-22.
17.
Norpoth, Helmut.2002. On a short leash: Term limits and economic voting. In The context of economic voting, ed. Han Dorussen and Michaell Taylor, 121-36. London : Routledge.
18.
---. 2004. Forecasting British elections: A dynamic perspective. Electoral Studies23:297-305.
19.
Norpoth, Helmut, and Jerrold G. Rusk .2007. Electoral myth and reality: Realignments in American politics. Electoral Studies26 (2): 392-403.
20.
Paldam, Martin.1991. How robust is the vote function? In Economics and politics: The calculus of support, ed. Helmut Norpoth, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, and Jean-Dominique Lafay, 9-31. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press.
21.
Rusk, Jerrold G.2001. A statistical history of the American electorate. Washington, DC: CQ.
22.
Sellers, Charles.1965. The equilibrium cycle in two-party politics. Public Opinion Quarterly29:16-38.
23.
Stokes, Donald E.1966. Some dynamic elements in contests for the presidency. American Political Science Review60 (1): 19-28.
24.
---. 1967. Parties and the nationalization of electoral forces. In The American party systems: Stages of political development, ed. William Nisbet Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, 182-202. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
25.
Stokes, Donald E., and Gudmund R. Iversen .1962. On the existence of forces restoring party competition. Public Opinion Quarterly 26. Repr. in Elections and the political order, ed. A. Campbell, P. E. Converse, W. E. Miller, and D. E. Stokes, 180-93. New York: Wiley, 1966.
26.
Sundquist, James L.1983. Dynamics of the party system: Alignment and realignment of political parties in the United States. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
27.
Trandahl, Jeff.2001. Statistics of the presidential and congressional election of November 7, 2000 (corrected to June 21, 2001). Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, Clerk’s Office .
28.
---. 2003. Statistics of the congressional elections of November 5, 2002 (corrected to May 1, 2003). Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, Clerk’s Office.
29.
---. 2005. Statistics of the presidential and congressional election of November 2, 2004 (corrected to June 7, 2005). Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, Clerk’s Office .
30.
Vonnegut, Kurt.1974. Wampeters, foma and granfallons. New York: Delacourte.
