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No News Is News: Nonignorable Nonresponse in Roll‐Call Data Analysis

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  • Guillermo Rosas
  • Yael Shomer
  • Stephen R. Haptonstahl

Abstract

Roll‐call votes are widely employed to infer the ideological proclivities of legislators. However, many roll‐call matrices are characterized by high levels of nonresponse. Under many circumstances, nonresponse cannot be assumed to be ignorable. We examine the consequences of violating the ignorability assumption that underlies current methods of roll‐call analysis. We present a basic estimation framework to model nonresponse and vote choice concurrently, build a model that captures the logic of competing principals that underlies accounts of nonresponse in many legislatures, and illustrate the payoff of addressing nonignorable nonresponse through both simulated and real data. We conclude that modeling presumed patterns of nonignorable nonresponse can yield important inferential payoffs over current models that assume random missingness, but we also emphasize that the decision to model nonresponse should be based on theoretical grounds since one cannot rely on measures of goodness of fit for the purpose of model comparison.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillermo Rosas & Yael Shomer & Stephen R. Haptonstahl, 2015. "No News Is News: Nonignorable Nonresponse in Roll‐Call Data Analysis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(2), pages 511-528, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:2:p:511-528
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12148
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    Cited by:

    1. Julia C. Morse & Bridget Coggins, 2024. "Your silence speaks volumes: Weak states and strategic absence in the UN General Assembly," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 515-544, September.
    2. Laurent Bouton & Paola Conconi & Francisco Pino & Maurizio Zanardi, 2021. "The Tyranny of the Single-Minded: Guns, Environment, and Abortion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 48-59, March.
    3. Zoltán Fazekas & Martin Ejnar Hansen, 2022. "Incentives for non-participation: absence in the United Kingdom House of Commons, 1997–2015," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 51-73, April.
    4. Monika Mühlböck & Nikoleta Yordanova, 2017. "When legislators choose not to decide: Abstentions in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 323-336, June.
    5. Robitzsch, Alexander, 2020. "About Still Nonignorable Consequences of (Partially) Ignoring Missing Item Responses in Large-scale Assessment," OSF Preprints hmy45, Center for Open Science.

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