Congress (American Politics)

Comparing NOMINATE and IDEAL: Points of Difference and Monte Carlo Tests

by Royce Carroll

Measuring Bias and Uncertainty in DW-NOMINATE Ideal Point Estimates via the Parametric Bootstrap

by Royce Carroll

Judicial Supremacy and the Politics of Executive Judicial Relations

by David Miles

Honours Dissertation for my MA at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, 2010

Analysis of the emergence of judicial supremacy within American politics, as shown in the work of Whittington, reveals... more Analysis of the emergence of judicial supremacy within American politics, as shown in the work of Whittington, reveals the important role played by political actors and particularly the presidency in the formation of the Supreme Court’s power. This dissertation builds on Whittington’s work regarding judicial supremacy but differs in the extent to which it emphasises the salient role of judicial agency in the formation of the Court’s authority. Judicial agency sees the Court as a political actor making calculations in the context of the prevailing circumstances and adopting strategies to maximise its authority. The relationship between the Supreme Court and the presidency defies easy categorisation, yet the political benefits to presidents of the Court’s ability to render favourable rulings on preferred policies appear to outweigh the undeniable disadvantages which have accrued to presidents from their recognition of judicial authority.

The Politics of Issue Definition: Framing Climate Change in the United States Congress

by Mat Hope

Presented at the Political Studies Association Annual Conference 2012

At a time where evidence of the material advantages of comprehensive action on climate change is ever-growing, the... more At a time where evidence of the material advantages of comprehensive action on climate change is ever-growing, the United States remains a laggard at home and an obstacle abroad. The high-profile failure of two recent bills - the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act - shows the ongoing inability of Congress to pass legislation which will “save our planet from the ravages of climate change” (President Obama 2009). This paper serves to illuminate the obstructive role that issue-definition can play within the policy process in Congress. A frame analysis of relevant legislative debates between 1992 and 2008 is conducted to ascertain the effect of four variables on the issue definition of climate change: party, ideology, chamber, and constituency. It is shown how the multiple framings of ‘climate change’ by members in both chambers on all sides of the partisan and ideological divide entrenches particularly complex ‘policy images’ (see Baumgartner and Jones 1993) and ‘causal stories’ (Stone 2002) whereby the definition of ‘climate change’ as a policy issue incorporates too many other controversial issues – from the economy, to the ‘national interest’ and homeland security – so as to make legislating impracticable.

You Said What_Politics of Rhetorical Signing Statements Under United and Divided Govt_MW2010

by Deanna J. Watts

Stochastic Control of Appropriations by Antitrust Enforcers

by William MacMillan

Federal agencies make policy while dealing with substantial uncertainty about funding. To examine the extent to which... more Federal agencies make policy while dealing with substantial uncertainty about funding. To examine the extent to which bureacrats are responsive to changes in appropriations, while dealing with an uncertain future, I develop a dynamic, stochastic control model of policy choice by agencies. The model is used to directly derive a method of recovering the budget-output function of an agency. I collect and analyze data on the antitrust enforcement activities of the Division of Justice's Antitrust Division (ADOJ). I find that the ADOJ adopts different strategies of responsiveness to budgetary signals depending upon the size of the budget. At appropriation amounts of $130 million or more the agency chooses to be unresponsive to budgetary signals. Under this amount, the agency chooses to remain responsive.

Internet and opportunities of political participation - Examining Brazilian and American senators websites / Internet e Oportunidades e Participação Política: Um exame dos websites de senadores brasileiros e norte-americanos

by Francisco Paulo Jamil Marques

Title in English: Internet and opportunities of political participation - Examining Brazilian and American senators... more Title in English: Internet and opportunities of political participation - Examining Brazilian and American senators websites. Text in Portuguese. Abstract in English available: This article examines the personal websites of political representatives taking into account the main resources offered to make the political participation of citizens feasible. If, on the one hand, one can indicate many possibilities brought by the Internet to improve political practices, on the other hand, the examples of actual use of digital tools to strengthen the citizens participation are scarce. This paper proposes an analytical grid to evaluate the quantity and quality of the tools present in senators websites. The idea of levels of citizens participation seeks to measure how porous these websites are on the basis of the importance they give to citizens contributions. The empirical comparison between websites of Brazilian and American senators leads to the conclusion that the Internet could be far better used to improve democratic participation..

The Precipice of Disunion: The Nullification Crisis of 1832-3

by Chip Schroeder

The Nullification Crisis was a controversy ostensibly caused by the federal government’s tariffs of 1828 and 1832 that... more The Nullification Crisis was a controversy ostensibly caused by the federal government’s tariffs of 1828 and 1832 that strained the Southern economy more than it was already being hurt by the recession that began in 1819. The passage of these tariffs in Congress—one under President John Quincy Adams; the other under President Andrew Jackson—proved to some South Carolinians that their interests were being surrendered to the will of the majority. South Carolinians therefore looked back into the nation’s history to find a way to restore their liberties under the flag of Thomas Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions and James Madison’s Virginia Resolutions. The resulting conflict divided South Carolina between nullifiers and unionists, brought the nation to the precipice of disunion, and laid the roots for a country divided on sectional lines.

Waismel-Manor, Israel & Tsfati, Yariv. 2011. Do Attractive Congresspersons Get More Media Coverage? Political Communication, 28, 440-463.

by Israel Waismel Manor

Based on psychological research on the attractiveness effect, this study investigated the role of legislators’... more Based on psychological research on the attractiveness effect, this study investigated the role of legislators’ physical attractiveness in shaping the amount of their news coverage. The physical attractiveness of members of the first session of the 110th U.S. Congress was evaluated by non-American college students. Computerized searches in news transcripts archived in Lexis-Nexis were used to determine the number of times each of the representatives appeared on national TV news, radio, and newspapers. Multivariate analysis, controlling for a host of predictors of coverage (e.g., seniority, state size, number of bills sponsored by members, number of press releases sponsored,
members’ ideology and extremity, and assignment to a prestigious committee), demonstrated that televised news coverage was associated with the measure of physical
attractiveness. Possible mechanisms underlying the association were empirically explored.

The US Economic and Political Situation

by Patricia Nelson

Presented at the Swedish-American Entrepreneurial Days organized by the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) on Sept. 14, 2011 in Växjö, Sweden.

While the Federal level political and economic debate is important, local issues, debates and concerns are critical... more While the Federal level political and economic debate is important, local issues, debates and concerns are critical for companies looking to develop business links between Sweden and the US,

Slavery and the Meaning of America, 1819-1833

by Robert Pierce Forbes

The Virtue of Necessity: the prudential treatment of the Senate in The Federalist

by Murray S. Y. Bessette

Prepared for delivery at: The 2009 Northeastern Political Science Association Meeting, 19 November 2009 – 21 November 2009

Any examination of the constitution, whether critical or complimentary, must begin by acknowledging the political... more Any examination of the constitution, whether critical or complimentary, must begin by acknowledging the political necessities that governed the outcome. In other words, the examination of the constitution must square with the political facts as they were known to the convention that drafted it. Given the political circumstances certain institutional arrangements simply could not have been adopted – no matter how desirable they happened to be.  In light of this, and in recognition of the fact that there are no harm-free alternatives in political life (because any change within the institutional and legal framework of a polity will result in the diminution of certain preexisting powers), the discussant who thinks politically about the constitution will abide by the “the advice of prudence ... to embrace the lesser evil." Nowhere is such political thinking required more than in discussion of the Senate, the institutional arrangement of which is the exemplar of the effect of the peculiarity of American political circumstance. It is in his examination of the Senate that Publius shows most explicitly that he is a political thinker of a very high order who recognizes when and how theory of necessity must bend to political circumstance.

"Congress and Nazi Anti-Semitism: Issue Advocacy and Policy Formation"

by Jeffrey Demsky

paper presented to the 67th Annual Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 4, 2008

Switchers and Sustainers The Use of Side Issues in the 2008 Financial Bailout Bill

by Stephen Flynn

A 'Presidential Pen' with No Ink: Congress as an Immovable Object on Climate Change, 1992-2008

by Mat Hope

The US is a country ill at ease with the issue of climate change; ‘high-minded words’ teamed with ‘low-down behaviour’... more The US is a country ill at ease with the issue of climate change; ‘high-minded words’ teamed with ‘low-down behaviour’ form the basis of an ‘American paradox’ on environmental issues. Among the US’ political elite there is an increasing recognition that the US must do something, but deciding what that ‘something’ is proves problematic. With the election of President Obama supposedly came a ‘new day for environmentalists’. In a country so troubled and confused by the challenges that climate change brings, though, will President Obama’s leadership really be enough to stimulate concerted federal action on climate change? In other words, on climate change, does it really matter who is President? This paper proceeds to argue that it does not through a comparison of Congressional out during the President Clinton and President George W. Bush years. Furthermore, it shows that the institution that is actually most important for progress on this issue, Congress, has been nothing short of an immovable object in this area. A number of explanations for this are explored before concluding that Congressional stasis is, in this case, qualitatively more complex than it first appears. As such, an alternative approach to analysis – framing– is necessary for fresh insight into the politics of US climate change policy.

Discursive institutionalism and policy stasis: Understanding 'climate change' in the United States' Congress

by Mat Hope

Presented at the 6th Interpretivist Policy Analysis Conference, Cardiff, July 2011.

Discursive institutionalism is a useful theory for understanding and explaining institutional change, overcoming... more Discursive institutionalism is a useful theory for understanding and explaining institutional change, overcoming obstacles that the “older institutionalisms posit as insurmountable” (Schmidt 2008: 304). However, here it is argued that it makes an equally valuable contribution to understanding institutional and policy stasis. The paper traces the effect of discourse and ideational factors parallel to material factors throughout the policy process; from the inception of an issue through its evolution as a policy item. As institutional discourses evolve they can be a force for anti-change as much as progress, an as yet under-developed aspect of discursive institutionalism’s contribution to institutionalist theory. Rather than painting discursive institutionalism in the same light as the ‘older’ new institutionalisms – each criticised for struggling to account for policy change under conditions of disequilibrium (Hay 2006a, 2006b) – the paper conceptualises the ability of discursive institutionalism to explore cases of policy stasis in all their complexity as a key strength of the theory.
Employing the example of climate change policy within the United States’ Congress, the paper explores how framing and issue-definition can establish and perpetuate institutional discourses to cause fragmentation, gridlock, and policy stasis. In a time where evidence of the material advantages of comprehensive action on climate change is ever-growing, the United States remains a laggard at home and an obstacle abroad. Congress is an important actor for the establishment of a comprehensive, national climate change strategy for the US but the recent failure of the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill in the Senate shows the ongoing inability of the institution to catalyse the implementation of such policy. Under such circumstances, seeming inaction is in fact significant action in itself, and discursive institutionalism advances on other institutional theories to illuminate the nuances of this process.

Resolved: The Size of the United States House of Representatives Should be Increased to 675 Seats

by Brian Frederick

In Debating Reform: Conflicting Perspectives on the Constitution, eds. Richard J. Ellis and Michael J. Nelson. CQ Press, 138-143.

Committee Power In Congress

by Eric Gallager

My paper for my Legislative Politics class I took with professor Christopher Deering the second semester of my sophomore year.

In this paper I argue that the partisan perspective on committees best explains committee power in Congress. In this paper I argue that the partisan perspective on committees best explains committee power in Congress.

LEGISLATING UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE: THE INFLUENCE OF JUDICIAL REVIEW ON CONGRESSIONAL BEHAVIOR

by Joshua Bell

Co-authored with Michelle L. Badger and Eric M. Slusher

Most research on the influence of the Rehnquist Court's federalism decisions focuses on attempts to reenact judicially... more Most research on the influence of the Rehnquist Court's federalism decisions focuses on attempts to reenact judicially invalidated statutes.  Less attention is paid, however, to the threat of judicial review on consideration of future legislation.  Two exceptions are Pickerill and Dinan, who both studied the impact of Court decisions on future Congressional behavior.  We apply a similar qualitative analysis of the impact of judicial review of legislation implicated by the federalism decisions from the 107th through the 110th Congresses.  While the threat of judicial review has played a role in Congressional debates, members often selectively employ constitutionality arguments based on partisan policy considerations.  We find that the threat of review is fading and that a legislator’s impulse to implement federal laws for perceived political benefit outweighs fear of constitutional invalidation.  Therefore, the ability of courts to restrain Congressional policy activity in areas traditionally reserved for the states is in doubt.