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abstractBarry C. Burden, Gregory A. Caldeira,
and Tim Groseclose
Measuring
the Ideologies of U.S. Senators: The Song Remains the Same
Legislative Studies Quarterly,
XXV:237-58
This research note discusses and compares nine measures
of senator ideology. It is motivated by the newest measure of legislator
ideology offered by Hill, Hanna, and Shafqat (1997), which seeks to improve on
existing measures, particularly those based on roll-call votes. We gather and
compare nine different ideological measures from a wide variety of sources.
After evaluating them theoretically and empirically, we conclude that existing
indicators operationalize ideology as least as well as the newer alternatives.