The State of the Union: The State of Applause

Abstract

This research focuses on reactions by members of Congress during the State of the Union address. Quantitative methods are used to examine if changes in overall political conditions, especially the level of partisanship, changes the nature of the responses of political actors. The results find that Congress responds to the speech in two major ways. Responses can represent attempts at partisan unity or alternatively represent attempts to show stronger than normal support for certain issues. This research supports several competing theories of representation and highlights the need to establish proper context when studying political actions. Since multiple theories of representation can draw from the conclusions the research also emphasizes the need for models to be synthesized that draw from more than one theory.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Melinda Mueller (Supervisor)