Serving the Government
Choose Your Battles Wisely: The Consequences of Protesting Government Procurement Contracts
Mehmet Canayaz, Jess Cornaggia & Kimberly Cornaggia
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the relationship between a firm’s successful protest of a government agency’s conduct or terms of a procurement contract and the amount of business the firm conducts with the government going forward. We find firms receive fewer and less valuable government contracts, face more contract cancellations, and experience significant reductions in sales growth and employee growth. Despite widespread belief, successful bid protesters do not delay government procurement because of lengthy dispute resolutions. Overall, we provide the first analysis of corporate interactions with the United States government bid protest system.
Legal constraint through political means? Legal foundations and public support for executive action
Aaron Childree, Hyein Yang & Douglas Kriner
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many scholars question the extent to which presidents are legally constrained, but others argue that public opinion provides an indirect but important mechanism through which law checks unilateral power. Through thirteen survey experiments, we examine whether the legal foundations of executive action -- whether framed as pursuant to delegated statutory authority or contra the will of Congress -- affect public support for unilateralism. Legal frames can influence public support, particularly among those with the strongest attachments to the rule of law. However, these effects are highly concentrated in hypothetical vignettes or temporally distant cases. Legal frames have little effect on support for executive action by recent presidents, even when they shape public perceptions of an action’s legality. Our results inform debates about the conditions under which public opinion might serve as a backstop against democratic backsliding by checking presidential overreach, and the role of law in shaping public debates about presidential power.
Unorthodox Lawmaking and the Value of Committee Assignments
James Curry & Leah Rosenstiel
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do unorthodox lawmaking processes reduce the influence provided to lawmakers by their committee assignments? In recent decades, Congress has increasingly used “unorthodox” processes to consider and pass legislation. Included among these unorthodox approaches is a more frequent bypassing of formal committee-led processes. Some scholars and observers expect that these violations of the “regular order” may reduce the influence committee members have on policy outcomes. However, this intuition has not been tested in any systematic way. Drawing on data on every federal formula grant program reauthorized more than one time since 1980, we compare amounts going to states across programs that were and were not subject to formal committee mark-ups and conferences during reauthorization efforts. We do not find any evidence that the value of a committee seat is affected by whether or not committee-led stages of the legislative process are bypassed.
When Do Legislators Represent Their Constituents? Evidence from Roll-Call and Referendum Votes
John Matsusaka
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper develops a measure of representation that uses referendum returns to capture constituent opinion, and applies it to 4,192 roll-call votes on 33 laws in 10 states. Roll-call votes were congruent with majority/median opinion in a district 66 percent of the time. Roll-call votes can be explained primarily by legislator ideology, with constituent opinion of secondary importance. The data do not show a reliable connection between congruence and competitive elections, term limits, media attention, and party pressure. The evidence generally supports the predictions of representation theories that emphasize selection of legislators that share constituent ideology, and provides little support for theories that emphasize re-election incentives.
A Crisis of Political Trust? Global Trends in Institutional Trust from 1958 to 2019
Viktor Valgarðsson et al.
British Journal of Political Science, February 2025
Abstract:
In the study of politics, many theoretical accounts assume that we are experiencing a ‘crisis of democracy’, with declining levels of political trust. While some empirical studies support this account, others disagree and report ‘trendless fluctuations’. We argue that these empirical ambiguities are based on analytical confusion: whether trust is declining depends on the institution, country, and period in question. We clarify these issues and apply our framework to an empirical analysis that is unprecedented in geographic and temporal scope: we apply Bayesian dynamic latent trait models to uncover underlying trends in data on trust in six institutions collated from 3,377 surveys conducted by 50 projects in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019. We identify important differences between countries and regions, but globally we find that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades, whereas trust in ‘implementing’ institutions has been stable or rising.
Out with the Old, In with the Republicans? The Partisan Push of Legislative Term Limits
Jordan Butcher
Journal of Policy History, January 2025, Pages 22-47
Abstract:
Legislative term limits garnered public support because they promised to drain the swamp, removing entrenched incumbents from office. There is often a partisan dimension to this appeal since “the swamp” that is to be “drained” has often been controlled by one party for a lengthy period. However, it remains unclear to what extent term limits realign partisanship within US state legislatures. Using newly available turnover data, this research evaluates how legislative partisanship shifted after the implementation of term limits in state legislatures and continued over 20 years. The initial surge effects of term limits did appear to level the playing field between parties. The passage of term limits reversed party majorities in state legislatures, primarily benefiting newfound Republican majorities. These findings have important implications for current understandings of legislative term limits, as more states revisit these proposals, and provide insight into party trends at the state legislative level.
Bureaucrats in Congress: The Politics of Inter-branch Information Sharing
Pamela Ban, Ju Yeon Park & Hye Young You
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Congress often relies on bureaucrats’ information for policy production. However, scholars lack an empirical understanding of what drives information sharing between bureaucrats and legislators. We argue that the partisan alignment between a bureaucrat and legislator determines the amount and type of information transmitted. Using new comprehensive data on bureaucratic witnesses in committee hearings, as well as a new measure of the informational content of testimonies, we show that less analytical information is transmitted between a bureaucrat and legislator pair when the legislator is a presidential out-partisan than a co-partisan, and that this effect is heightened when the bureaucrat is a political appointee. At the aggregate hearing level, the collective amount of analytical information from bureaucrats is lower under divided government than unified government but is offset by the analytical information from non-bureaucratic witnesses. These dynamics provide a nuanced understanding of the information transmission between bureaucrats and Congress.
Feigning Politicians
Barton Lee
Journal of Politics, January 2025, Pages 70-84
Abstract:
Politicians have limited ability to influence policy. This provides an incentive for politicians to feign a policy agenda: they publicly propose policies that voters demand but privately exert little effort toward progressing such policies. This feigning behavior is more likely to occur when the politician’s preferred agenda is close to the status quo or when the politician is an ineffective legislator. My model predicts that under certain conditions, such as a trade shock, less effective legislators will be more likely to publicly support policies that voters demand and may be reelected with higher probability than more effective legislators.
Exposing the Revolving Door in Executive Branch Agencies
Logan Emery & Mara Faccio
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
We develop an extensive mapping of the revolving door phenomenon by examining the work experience of 420,153 individuals in top corporate positions at 12,869 firms. More than half of these firms have at least one such individual with prior experience in one of 187 executive branch agencies. We find that firms are more likely to receive procurement contracts following the appointment of a former regulator transitioning within 2 years of leaving the agency, a result consistent with the “knowledge” hypothesis. Less-complex contracts signed following the appointment of former regulators are more likely to be renegotiated, increasing costs for the government.
Information, Uncertainty, and Public Support for Brinkmanship During the 2023 Debt Limit Negotiations
Matthew DiGiuseppe & Patrick Shea
British Journal of Political Science, February 2025
Abstract:
Why do US voters allow politicians to hold the country’s economy hostage during debt ceiling negotiations? In this research note, we argue that ignorance and uncertainty over the consequences of a debt ceiling breach play a nontrivial role in public support for hard-line negotiating positions. In a pre-registered survey experiment, two weeks before the June 2023 deadline to raise the US debt ceiling, we show that providing credible information about the consequences of default increases support for concessions among both Democrats and Republicans. Further, more certain information about the consequences of a debt ceiling breach has a larger effect than less-certain information suggesting that the unpredictable consequences of the crisis also help explain voter reluctance to accept concessions. The findings have implications for understanding debt ceiling negotiations and other crisis bargaining situations where the public serves as a relevant third party.
The Alphabet Mafia: Effectiveness of LGBTQ+ Interest Groups in Congress
Robert Anstett
PS: Political Science & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines the effectiveness of LGBTQ groups in Congress by looking at voting in favor of bills concerning queer rights. I find that the effect of donations is present in the early period of queer bills before Congress but disappears in bills post-2018. Instead, party is the dominant explanation for votes on bills. This has implications for the strategies that should be employed by LGBTQ+ interests at the national level and implications for how political science should examine the interactions between interest groups and new venues of change.