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Content and Context: Three Essays on Information in Politics

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Content and Context: Three Essays on Information in Politics CONTENT AND CONTEXT: THREE ESSAYS ON INFORMATION IN POLITICS by Ian Palmer Cook Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Ian Palmer Cook It was defended on March 31, 2016 and approved by Jonathan Woon, Political Science Kristin Kanthak, Political Science George Krause, Political Science Kenneth Shotts, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University Dissertation Director: Jonathan Woon, Political Science ii Copyright c by Ian Palmer Cook 2016 iii ABSTRACT CONTENT AND CONTEXT: THREE ESSAYS ON INFORMATION IN POLITICS Ian Palmer Cook, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 This dissertation explores the implications of information asymmetries in three specific political environments: primary campaign speeches; negotiating behavior; and testimony delivered in a congressional hearing. First, dog whistling can dramatically affect the outcome of elections, despite observers never being sure it actually occurred. I build a model that addresses how a whistle operates, and explore implications on candidate competition. I find that whistling lets candidates distinguish themselves from competitors in the minds of voters. Second, political negotiation frequently looks like two sides staring each other down, where neither side wishes to concede, claiming that doing so would incur the wrath of voters. Little theory or evidence exists to explain how voters allocate blame for different outcomes. We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate how anticipation of blame drives negotiating behavior, and how observers allocate blame. We find that the presence of an observer has little effect on standoff outcomes but appears to shorten the duration of standoffs. Third, while congressional hearings give legislators a national stage on which to score political points by publicly chastising high-level bureaucrats, and gives lobbyists a forum to demonstrate their access and importance to policymakers, less clear is how well hearings serve the purposes of oversight. I address this question through automated text analysis of hearings in the 105th − 112th Congresses. I show that the oversight function of hearings is only effective when it is least likely to be used: when the congressional committee and the bureaucrat agree on policy. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ....................................... xii 1.0 INTRODUCTION ...............................1 2.0 DOG WHISTLING ..............................7 2.1 \You Know How to Whistle, Don't You?"................ 10 2.2 Voter Information and Whistling..................... 14 2.3 Models and Results............................. 17 2.3.1 One Dimensional Model...................... 17 2.3.2 One-Dimensional Model Results.................. 20 2.3.3 Two Dimensional Model...................... 24 2.3.4 Two Dimension Model Results.................. 26 2.3.4.1 Empirical Implications.................. 28 2.4 Discussion.................................. 30 3.0 TIME AND PUNISHMENT: BLAME AND CONCESSION IN PO- LITICAL STANDOFFS ........................... 33 3.1 The Politics of Blame............................ 35 3.2 Experimental Design and Procedures................... 37 3.3 Theoretical Expectations.......................... 42 3.4 Findings................................... 45 3.4.1 Outcomes.............................. 45 3.4.2 Punishment............................. 53 3.4.3 Classification of Punishment Strategies.............. 56 3.4.4 Individual Differences in Behavior................. 59 v 3.5 Discussion.................................. 63 4.0 INFORMATION TRANSMISSION IN CONGRESSIONAL HEAR- INGS ....................................... 66 4.1 Hearings as Signaling............................ 68 4.2 Language as Information.......................... 76 4.3 Data and Methods............................. 77 4.4 Findings................................... 82 4.4.1 Ideology and Informativeness................... 83 4.4.2 Additional Influences on Specificity................ 86 4.5 Discussion.................................. 88 5.0 CONCLUSION ................................. 92 APPENDIX A. DOG WHISTLING PROOFS ................ 96 A.1 Proof of Proposition 1: No \Fully Truthful" Separating Equilibria... 96 A.1.1 Strategy............................... 96 A.1.2 Voter Beliefs and Best Responses................. 96 A.1.3 C1 Utilities............................. 98 A.1.4 Using a Dog Whistle........................ 99 A.2 Proof of Proposition 2: Two Separating Equilibria............ 101 A.2.1 Strategies.............................. 101 A.2.2 Voter Beliefs and Best Responses................. 101 A.2.3 C1 Utilities............................. 103 A.3 Proof of Proposition 3: Pooling Equilibria................ 105 A.3.1 Strategy............................... 105 A.3.2 Voter Beliefs and Best Responses................. 105 A.3.3 C1 Utilities............................. 107 A.3.4 Pooling on Whistling........................ 108 A.3.5 Strategies.............................. 109 A.3.6 Voter Beliefs and Best Responses................. 109 A.3.7 C1 Utilities............................. 111 A.4 Proofs of Two-Dimension Model Results................. 112 vi A.5 Proof of Proposition 4: One Type of C1 Whistling............ 112 A.5.1 Strategy............................... 112 A.5.2 Voter Beliefs and Best Responses................. 112 A.5.3 C1 Utilities............................. 115 A.6 Proof of Proposition 5: No Partial or Full Pooling Dog Whistling... 119 A.6.0.1 No Pooling by Ideological Type............. 119 A.6.1 C1 Strategy............................. 119 A.6.2 Voter Beliefs and Best Responses................. 119 A.6.3 C1 Utilities............................. 120 A.6.4 No Pooling By Group Type.................... 121 A.6.5 No Full Pooling........................... 121 APPENDIX B. BLAME AND CONCESSION ................ 122 B.1 Time-Based and Punishment-Based Learning Effects.......... 122 B.1.1 Time-Based Learning Effects................... 122 B.1.2 Punishment-Based Learning Effects................ 123 APPENDIX C. INFORMATION TRANSMISSION ............ 126 C.1 Descriptive Statistics............................ 126 C.1.1 Hearings Data and Dependent Variable.............. 126 C.1.2 Independent Variables....................... 129 C.2 Measuring Speaker Specificity....................... 129 APPENDIX D. Bibliography ........................... 133 vii LIST OF FIGURES 1 Actual Stopping Times Bimodal, Intended Times Cluster .... 46 2 Distribution of Actual Stopping Times ................ 50 3 Distribution of Outcomes by Treatment ................ 52 4 Distribution of Intended Stopping Times, by Gender ....... 60 5 Distribution of Agency Witness Ideal Point Ranges ........ 74 6 Distribution of Raw Speaker Specificity Scores ........... 128 7 Distribution of Transformed Speaker Specifity Scores ....... 130 viii LIST OF TABLES 1 Probabilities that Voter Types Hear Possible Message ....... 19 2 Average Actual and Intended Stopping Times by Treatment ... 47 3 Effects of Treatment on Contestant Choice of Stopping Times .. 48 4 Effects of Treatment on Likelihood of an Extreme Stopping Time 51 5 Average Deductions by Contest, Outcomes, and Treatment ... 54 6 Effects of Outcomes and Treatments on the Use of Punishment . 55 7 Distribution of Play and Subjects by Category ........... 58 8 Average Deductions by Outcomes, Treatment, and Gender .... 61 9 Distribution of Rational Play by Gender ............... 61 10 Average Deductions By Outcomes, Treatment, and Ideology ... 62 11 Distribution of Rational Play by Ideology ............... 63 12 Increasing Ideological Difference Decreases Information ...... 84 13 Increasing Chair Seniority Modestly Increases Information .... 85 14 Ideological Distance Matters in Both Chambers ........... 86 15 Expanded Models .............................. 89 16 Utilities for Combinations of Candidate Types and C1 Messages 98 17 Utilities for C1O Whistling ........................ 100 18 Utilities for Combinations of Candidate Types and C1 Messages 103 19 Utilities for Combinations of Candidate Types and C1 Messages 107 20 Utilities for Combinations of Candidate Types and C1 Messages 108 21 Utilities for Combinations of Candidate Types and C1 Messages 111 ix 22 Utilities for Voter Candidate Choice, Given Dog Whistling Strat- egy for C1E;O ................................. 114 23 Utilities for Each Type, Given Message and C1's Strategy .... 116 24 Constraints for c and λ to Support Proposed Equilibrium .... 117 25 Constraints for c and λ to Support Proposed Equilibrium .... 118 26 Expected Utilities for Voter Choice, Given Group-Based Dog Whistling. 120 27 C1 Utilities For Clear Messages and Dog Whistling ......... 121 28 Time-Based Learning Effects ....................... 124 29 Punishment Use Before and After Receiving First Deductions . 125 30 Count of Hearings in Data Set by Congress Number and Chamber127 31 Summary Statistics for Key Independent Variables ......... 131 x For Marion: Papa done. xi PREFACE Number Six: Where am I? Number Two: In the Village. Number Six: What do you want? Number Two: Information. Number Six: Whose side are you on? Number Two: That would be telling. We want information... information... information. Number Six: You won't get it. Number Two: By hook or by crook, we will. The Prisoner xii 1.0 INTRODUCTION Information is a protean concept
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