Summary of Rohde: Risk bearing and progressive ambition -- Adam Brown, BYU Political Science

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Rohde: Risk bearing and progressive ambition

Disclaimer. Don't rely on these old notes in lieu of reading the literature, but they can jog your memory. As a grad student long ago, my peers and I collaborated to write and exchange summaries of political science research. I posted them to a wiki-style website. "Wikisum" is now dead but archived here. I cannot vouch for these notes' accuracy, nor can I say who wrote them.

Rohde. 1979. Risk bearing and progressive ambition. AJPS 23:1-26.

Place in the Literature

Schlesinger argued that there are three types of ambition present among House members:

Discrete ambition: You want to run, hold office for one term, then retire.
Static ambition: You want to run, then hold that one office until you are old, then retire (e.g. many House members).
Progressive ambition: You want to run for progressively powerful offices.

Rohde counters that all House members have progressive ambition, but whether they exhibit it depends on their calculus--is it worth trying to run for a higher office or not?

The Calculus

See the article for specifics. Basically, whether a House member runs for Senate or governor depends on his expected utility of doing so--which, in turn, hinges on the value of the higher office, the probability of winning it, and the value of their current office.

Empirical Application

Rohde attempts to operationalize and test the model. A few examples:

Value of the higher office: length of gubernatorial term
Probability of winning: Open seat, whether the state favors his party, and the size of his district relative to the entire state
Value of the House seat: inversely proportional to the member's seniority
Whether the House member is a "risk taker."

Research by the same authors

Research on similar subjects

Jacobson and Kernell: Strategy and choice in Congressional elections (6 shared tags)
Carson, Engstrom, and Roberts: Candidate quality, the personal vote, and the incumbency advantage in Congress (5 shared tags)
Cox and Katz: Why did the incumbency advantage in U.S. House elections grow (5 shared tags)
Fenno: Homestyle (5 shared tags)
Fenno: U.S. House members in their constituencies (5 shared tags)
Gordon, Huber, and Landa: Challenger entry and voter learning (5 shared tags)
Mayhew: Congress (5 shared tags)
Mayhew: Congressional elections (5 shared tags)

Tags

Rohde, David (author) • American Politics • Risk • Elections • Congress (U.S.) • Challenger Quality • Incumbency Advantage • Electoral Connection

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