In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose devel... more In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose develop and apply an innovative method for detecting and estimating the frequency and magnitude of party influence in congressional roll call voting. This paper presents a framework for assessing the coefficient that the authors interpret as "party influence." The analysis reveals that, and shows why, the coefficient manifests two troublesome characteristics. The coefficient cannot discriminate between disparate types of party influence because the mapping between types of partison influence and signs of the coefficient is not one-to-one. Similarly, the coefficient has a responsiveness problem because a marginal increase in one party's influence can cause the estimate of the coefficient to increase, decrease, or remain constant. Because the literature on parties in Congress emphasizes majority-party strength, the inability of the coefficient to isolate party-specific effects is ...
Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking was conceived as an instance of normal science withi... more Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking was conceived as an instance of normal science within a nascent but nebulous paradigm. In the two decades following publication of the book, three disciplinary changes are noteworthy. First, the paradigm in which much political science is conducted has become more clearly identifiable. Second, more scholars are working within the emerging paradigm. Third, adherence to the paradigm’s norms of good research practice has become more consistent. This essay explicates four conceptually distinct but implicit components of the paradigm. Labeled the Components of Institutional Analysis, the framework has many uses. Several of these are illustrated with reference to Pivotal Politics and to the subsequent, constructively critical literature. The preponderance of this scholarship is normal science in the best sense. In its entirety, paradigm-guided research on institutions comports well with William Riker’s prognosis for a science of politics and Gerald Kramer’s requirements for scientific understanding.
Congressmen often claim to dislike restrictions on their opportunities to offer amendments to leg... more Congressmen often claim to dislike restrictions on their opportunities to offer amendments to legislation in the Committee of the Whole. Yet restrictive rules of various forms not only are quite common but often are voted into existence explicitly or implicitly. Whenever a modified closed rule from the Rules Committee receives a majority vote, members explicitly accept the restrictions that such rules place on amendments. Whenever a bill is passed under suspension of the rules, the requisite two-thirds vote is an implicit acceptance of restrictions, because the vote has the effect of not only passing the legislation, but passing it unamended. The frequency with which such procedures are used in the House of Representatives suggests that restrictions on the ability to amend are not abhorred after all. Thus the question: why do members of a democratic and decentralized legislature tolerate, indeed choose, restrictive rules? This paper ad dresses the question with a simple theoretical model based on a large class of empirical situations. The central argument is that restrictive rules are effective institutional devices for congressmen to initiate and maintain pareto optimal outcomes in areas of policy where, in the absence of such rules, initiation and maintenance of policies would be difficult.
This article discusses pivots and provides an overview of pivot theories. It also develops and il... more This article discusses pivots and provides an overview of pivot theories. It also develops and illustrates a new form of comparative institutional analysis, which would serve as a means for discriminating between such theories. This article shows that pivot theories are rather flexible, and can be powerful tools of contemporary political economy.
Groseclose and Snyder's revised method (2003) for assessing relative party influence deserves... more Groseclose and Snyder's revised method (2003) for assessing relative party influence deserves high praise for its creativity and explicitness. Two limitations should also be noted, however. First, the method seems likely to overstate majority-party influence. Second, even if taken at face value, the finding of asymmetric party influence is weak when compared with a baseline model.
We provide a definition of institutionalism and a schematic account that differentiates between i... more We provide a definition of institutionalism and a schematic account that differentiates between institutional theories (in which institutions are exogenous) and theories of institutions, in which some (but not necessarily all) institutions are endogenous. Our primary argument is that institutionalism in the contemporary context is better characterized as a method than as a body of substantive work motivated by the so-called chaos problem. Secondary arguments include the following. (1) While it is important to differentiate sharply between institutions and behavior, institutionalism presupposes a well-defined behavioral concept. (2) When making the challenging transition from developing institutional theories to developing theories of institutions, it is essential to hold behavioral axioms fixed and to choose a form of equilibrium that exists for the class of games studied. (3) For most research programs today, a form of Nash equilibrium has the requisite properties while the core, a...
Kenneth Shepsle and Barry Nalebuff have written a challenging and insightful essay on "The C... more Kenneth Shepsle and Barry Nalebuff have written a challenging and insightful essay on "The Commitment to Seniority in Self-Governing Groups." Its challenge arises from the richness of its focal concepts: seniority, commitment, and self-governing. Its insights come from clarifying these concepts while working toward a theory that has more immediate empirical implications than current theories. Shepsle and Nalebuff regard their paper as a "prolegomenon." As a preliminary statement, it will undoubtedly be useful for future research. This note attempts to provide some additional guidance by highlighting some strengths and limitations of the Shepsle-Nalebuff analysis. My premise is that a useful theory of seniority should have clear and empirically motivated concepts, explicit assumptions, and results that can be translated into testable predictions. Comments are organized accordingly.
With increasing regularity managers must address nonmarket as well as market problems. A common U... more With increasing regularity managers must address nonmarket as well as market problems. A common U.S. manifestation of this often-unwelcome reality is the abrupt emergence of a “Washington problem,” such as a piece of hostile legislation gathering momentum in the Congress. Although most business leaders today realize that doing nothing is rarely a viable response many activist nonmarket strategies are likewise problematic. For example even in the rare instances in which companies have the resources to devote to last-minute cover-the-Capitol blitzes such strategies are rarely effective and invariably wasteful. On any given issue a significant minority of legislators will oppose the lobbying manager's recommendations no matter what and a sizeable minority will favor them no matter what. Effective nonmarket strategies in contrast consist of knowing enough about governmental processes to ascertain who are the likely pivotal voters. This article presents a theory that provides a parsi...
Motivated by the US Congress's motion to recommit with instructions to report forthwith, a s... more Motivated by the US Congress's motion to recommit with instructions to report forthwith, a simple spatial model is analyzed to clarify the relationship between early-stage agenda-setting rights of a committee and/or the majority party, a late-stage minimum parliamentary right of the ...
Annual changes in domestic discretionary spending are analyzed to test predictions from three dis... more Annual changes in domestic discretionary spending are analyzed to test predictions from three distinct types of theories of US policy-making:(1) preference-driven, or nonpartisan, theories such as the recently developed pivotal politics theory or the better-known median ...
In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose devel... more In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose develop and apply an innovative method for detecting and estimating the frequency and magnitude of party influence in congressional roll call voting. This paper presents a framework for assessing the coefficient that the authors interpret as “party influence.” The analysis reveals that, and shows why, the coefficient manifests two troublesome characteristics. The coefficient cannot discriminate between disparate types of party influence because the mapping between types of partison influence and signs of the coefficient is not one-to-one. Similarly, the coefficient has a responsiveness problem because a marginal increase in one party's influence can cause the estimate of the coefficient to increase, decrease, or remain constant. Because the literature on parties in Congress emphasizes majority-party strength, the inability of the coefficient to isolate party-specific effects is a serious ...
Fixed statutes and regulations often have variable consequences over time. If left unattended, su... more Fixed statutes and regulations often have variable consequences over time. If left unattended, such drift can severely erode the performance of government as an institution of representation. To better understand the mechanics of policy-making in a changing world, we develop a positive theory that captures political drift in a dynamic separation-of-powers system. We show analytically that a distinctive combination of legislative supermajoritarianism and agency discretion—institutional features that, in isolation, elicit widespread criticism—can effectively ameliorate policies ’ susceptibility to the vicissitudes of exogenous change. The critical mechanism for governmental accommodation of drift is delegation, which increases all decisionmakers ’ well-being by reducing fluctuations in outcomes. Although the complete smoothing of outcomes is attainable in a separation-of- powers system, we show that this is typically not achieved in equilibrium. The presence of drift provides an oppor...
In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose devel... more In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose develop and apply an innovative method for detecting and estimating the frequency and magnitude of party influence in congressional roll call voting. This paper presents a framework for assessing the coefficient that the authors interpret as "party influence." The analysis reveals that, and shows why, the coefficient manifests two troublesome characteristics. The coefficient cannot discriminate between disparate types of party influence because the mapping between types of partison influence and signs of the coefficient is not one-to-one. Similarly, the coefficient has a responsiveness problem because a marginal increase in one party's influence can cause the estimate of the coefficient to increase, decrease, or remain constant. Because the literature on parties in Congress emphasizes majority-party strength, the inability of the coefficient to isolate party-specific effects is ...
Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking was conceived as an instance of normal science withi... more Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking was conceived as an instance of normal science within a nascent but nebulous paradigm. In the two decades following publication of the book, three disciplinary changes are noteworthy. First, the paradigm in which much political science is conducted has become more clearly identifiable. Second, more scholars are working within the emerging paradigm. Third, adherence to the paradigm’s norms of good research practice has become more consistent. This essay explicates four conceptually distinct but implicit components of the paradigm. Labeled the Components of Institutional Analysis, the framework has many uses. Several of these are illustrated with reference to Pivotal Politics and to the subsequent, constructively critical literature. The preponderance of this scholarship is normal science in the best sense. In its entirety, paradigm-guided research on institutions comports well with William Riker’s prognosis for a science of politics and Gerald Kramer’s requirements for scientific understanding.
Congressmen often claim to dislike restrictions on their opportunities to offer amendments to leg... more Congressmen often claim to dislike restrictions on their opportunities to offer amendments to legislation in the Committee of the Whole. Yet restrictive rules of various forms not only are quite common but often are voted into existence explicitly or implicitly. Whenever a modified closed rule from the Rules Committee receives a majority vote, members explicitly accept the restrictions that such rules place on amendments. Whenever a bill is passed under suspension of the rules, the requisite two-thirds vote is an implicit acceptance of restrictions, because the vote has the effect of not only passing the legislation, but passing it unamended. The frequency with which such procedures are used in the House of Representatives suggests that restrictions on the ability to amend are not abhorred after all. Thus the question: why do members of a democratic and decentralized legislature tolerate, indeed choose, restrictive rules? This paper ad dresses the question with a simple theoretical model based on a large class of empirical situations. The central argument is that restrictive rules are effective institutional devices for congressmen to initiate and maintain pareto optimal outcomes in areas of policy where, in the absence of such rules, initiation and maintenance of policies would be difficult.
This article discusses pivots and provides an overview of pivot theories. It also develops and il... more This article discusses pivots and provides an overview of pivot theories. It also develops and illustrates a new form of comparative institutional analysis, which would serve as a means for discriminating between such theories. This article shows that pivot theories are rather flexible, and can be powerful tools of contemporary political economy.
Groseclose and Snyder's revised method (2003) for assessing relative party influence deserves... more Groseclose and Snyder's revised method (2003) for assessing relative party influence deserves high praise for its creativity and explicitness. Two limitations should also be noted, however. First, the method seems likely to overstate majority-party influence. Second, even if taken at face value, the finding of asymmetric party influence is weak when compared with a baseline model.
We provide a definition of institutionalism and a schematic account that differentiates between i... more We provide a definition of institutionalism and a schematic account that differentiates between institutional theories (in which institutions are exogenous) and theories of institutions, in which some (but not necessarily all) institutions are endogenous. Our primary argument is that institutionalism in the contemporary context is better characterized as a method than as a body of substantive work motivated by the so-called chaos problem. Secondary arguments include the following. (1) While it is important to differentiate sharply between institutions and behavior, institutionalism presupposes a well-defined behavioral concept. (2) When making the challenging transition from developing institutional theories to developing theories of institutions, it is essential to hold behavioral axioms fixed and to choose a form of equilibrium that exists for the class of games studied. (3) For most research programs today, a form of Nash equilibrium has the requisite properties while the core, a...
Kenneth Shepsle and Barry Nalebuff have written a challenging and insightful essay on "The C... more Kenneth Shepsle and Barry Nalebuff have written a challenging and insightful essay on "The Commitment to Seniority in Self-Governing Groups." Its challenge arises from the richness of its focal concepts: seniority, commitment, and self-governing. Its insights come from clarifying these concepts while working toward a theory that has more immediate empirical implications than current theories. Shepsle and Nalebuff regard their paper as a "prolegomenon." As a preliminary statement, it will undoubtedly be useful for future research. This note attempts to provide some additional guidance by highlighting some strengths and limitations of the Shepsle-Nalebuff analysis. My premise is that a useful theory of seniority should have clear and empirically motivated concepts, explicit assumptions, and results that can be translated into testable predictions. Comments are organized accordingly.
With increasing regularity managers must address nonmarket as well as market problems. A common U... more With increasing regularity managers must address nonmarket as well as market problems. A common U.S. manifestation of this often-unwelcome reality is the abrupt emergence of a “Washington problem,” such as a piece of hostile legislation gathering momentum in the Congress. Although most business leaders today realize that doing nothing is rarely a viable response many activist nonmarket strategies are likewise problematic. For example even in the rare instances in which companies have the resources to devote to last-minute cover-the-Capitol blitzes such strategies are rarely effective and invariably wasteful. On any given issue a significant minority of legislators will oppose the lobbying manager's recommendations no matter what and a sizeable minority will favor them no matter what. Effective nonmarket strategies in contrast consist of knowing enough about governmental processes to ascertain who are the likely pivotal voters. This article presents a theory that provides a parsi...
Motivated by the US Congress's motion to recommit with instructions to report forthwith, a s... more Motivated by the US Congress's motion to recommit with instructions to report forthwith, a simple spatial model is analyzed to clarify the relationship between early-stage agenda-setting rights of a committee and/or the majority party, a late-stage minimum parliamentary right of the ...
Annual changes in domestic discretionary spending are analyzed to test predictions from three dis... more Annual changes in domestic discretionary spending are analyzed to test predictions from three distinct types of theories of US policy-making:(1) preference-driven, or nonpartisan, theories such as the recently developed pivotal politics theory or the better-known median ...
In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose devel... more In a 2000 article in American Journal of Political Science, James Snyder and Tim Groseclose develop and apply an innovative method for detecting and estimating the frequency and magnitude of party influence in congressional roll call voting. This paper presents a framework for assessing the coefficient that the authors interpret as “party influence.” The analysis reveals that, and shows why, the coefficient manifests two troublesome characteristics. The coefficient cannot discriminate between disparate types of party influence because the mapping between types of partison influence and signs of the coefficient is not one-to-one. Similarly, the coefficient has a responsiveness problem because a marginal increase in one party's influence can cause the estimate of the coefficient to increase, decrease, or remain constant. Because the literature on parties in Congress emphasizes majority-party strength, the inability of the coefficient to isolate party-specific effects is a serious ...
Fixed statutes and regulations often have variable consequences over time. If left unattended, su... more Fixed statutes and regulations often have variable consequences over time. If left unattended, such drift can severely erode the performance of government as an institution of representation. To better understand the mechanics of policy-making in a changing world, we develop a positive theory that captures political drift in a dynamic separation-of-powers system. We show analytically that a distinctive combination of legislative supermajoritarianism and agency discretion—institutional features that, in isolation, elicit widespread criticism—can effectively ameliorate policies ’ susceptibility to the vicissitudes of exogenous change. The critical mechanism for governmental accommodation of drift is delegation, which increases all decisionmakers ’ well-being by reducing fluctuations in outcomes. Although the complete smoothing of outcomes is attainable in a separation-of- powers system, we show that this is typically not achieved in equilibrium. The presence of drift provides an oppor...
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