Abstract
Political scientists have developed accepted numerical estimates of political ideology for legislators, candidates, parties and even nations, but interest groups lack such scores. This absence puts interest group research at a disadvantage compared to other subfields. I generate ideology scores for 72 groups across 10 years by combining groups’ evaluations of Members of Congress with Poole and Rosenthal’s estimates of Members’ ideologies. Alternative methods are explored, and the validity of the scores is demonstrated. Examinations of the scores focus on the relative distribution of groups and Members of Congress and the link between a group’s ideology and its campaign contributions.
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This research would not have been possible without the innovations and contributions of Keith Poole, both to the field generally and to this paper in particular. The author thanks Michael Munger, Jason Reifler, Jay Hamilton, Tom Rice, Keith Poole, Scott de Marchi, John Aldrich, Michael Tofias, Frederick Boehmke, anonymous reviewers, and others along the way for their very helpful ideas and comments.
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McKay, A. A simple way of estimating interest group ideology. Public Choice 136, 69–86 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-008-9281-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-008-9281-2