Download or read book Constituency Representation in Congress written by Kristina C. Miler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congressional representation requires that legislators be aware of the interests of constituents in their districts and behave in ways that reflect the wishes of their constituents. But of the many constituents in their districts, who do legislators in Washington actually see, and who goes unseen? Moreover, how do these perceptions of constituents shape legislative behavior? This book answers these fundamental questions by developing a theory of legislative perception that leverages insights from cognitive psychology. Legislators are shown to see only a few constituents in their district on a given policy, namely those who donate to their campaigns and contact the legislative office, and fail to see many other relevant constituents. Legislators are also subsequently more likely to act on behalf of the constituents they see, while important constituents not seen by legislators are rarely represented in the policymaking process.
Download or read book Constituency Representation in Congress written by Kristina C. Miler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congressional representation requires that legislators be aware of the interests of constituents in their districts and behave in ways that reflect the wishes of their constituents. But of the many constituents in their districts, who do legislators in Washington actually see, and who goes unseen? Moreover, how do these perceptions of constituents shape legislative behavior? This book answers these fundamental questions by developing a theory of legislative perception that leverages insights from cognitive psychology. Legislators are shown to see only a few constituents in their district on a given policy, namely those who donate to their campaigns and contact the legislative office, and fail to see many other relevant constituents. Legislators are also subsequently more likely to act on behalf of the constituents they see, while important constituents not seen by legislators are rarely represented in the policymaking process. Overall, legislators' views of constituents are limited and flawed, and even well-meaning legislators cannot represent their constituents if they do not accurately see who is in their district.
Download or read book Constituency Representation in Congress written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congressional representation requires that legislators be aware of the interests of constituents in their districts and behave in ways that reflect the wishes of their constituents. But of the many constituents in their districts, who do legislators in Washington actually see, and who goes unseen? Moreover, how do these perceptions of constituents shape legislative behavior? This book answers these fundamental questions by developing a theory of legislative perception that leverages insights from cognitive psychology. Legislators are shown to see only a few constituents in their district on a given policy, namely those who donate to their campaigns and contact the legislative office, and fail to see many other relevant constituents. Legislators are also subsequently more likely to act on behalf of the constituents they see, while important constituents not seen by legislators are rarely represented in the policymaking process.
Download or read book Representation in Congress written by Kim Quaile Hill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representation in Congress provides a theory of dyadic policy representation intended to account for when belief sharing, delegate, responsible party, trustee, and 'party elite led' models of representational linkage arise on specific policy issues. The book also presents empirical tests of most of the fundamental predictions for when such alternative models appear, and it presents tests of novel implications of the theory about other aspects of legislative behavior. Some of the latter tests resolve contradictory findings in the relevant, existing literature - such as whether and how electoral marginality affects representation, whether roll call vote extremism affects the re-election of incumbents, and what in fact is the representational behavior of switched seat legislators. All of the empirical tests provide evidence for the theory. Indeed, the full set of empirical tests provides evidence for the causal effects anticipated by the theory and much of the causal process behind those effects.
Download or read book The Concept of Constituency written by Andrew Rehfeld and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-27 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In virtually every democratic nation in the world, political representation is defined by where citizens live. In the United States, for example, Congressional Districts are drawn every 10 years as lines on a map. Why do democratic governments define political representation this way? Are territorial electoral constituencies commensurate with basic principles of democratic legitimacy? And why might our commitments to these principles lead us to endorse a radical alternative: randomly assigning citizens to permanent, single-member electoral constituencies that each looks like the nation they collectively represent? Using the case of the founding period of the United States as an illustration, and drawing from classic sources in Western political theory, this book describes the conceptual, historical, and normative features of the electoral constituency. As an institution conceptually separate from the casting of votes, the electoral constituency is little studied. Its historical origins are often incorrectly described. And as a normative matter, the constituency is almost completely ignored. Raising these conceptual, historical and normative issues, the argument culminates with a novel thought experiment of imagining how politics might change under randomized, permanent, national electoral constituencies. By focusing on how citizens are formally defined for the purpose of political representation, The Concept of Constituency thus offers a novel approach to the central problems of political representation, democratic legitimacy, and institutional design.
Download or read book Congressional Representation Constituents written by Brian Frederick and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2010 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses empirical data to scrutinize whether representation has been diminished by keeping a ceiling on the number of seats available in the House and argues that it is the time for the House to be increased in order to better represent a rapidly growing country.
Download or read book Congress in Black and White written by Christian R. Grose and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The symbolic importance of Barack Obama's election is without question. But beyond symbolism, does the election of African-American politicians matter? Grose argues that it does and presents a unified theory of representation. Electing African-American legislators yields more federal dollars and congressional attention directed toward African-American voters. However, race and affirmative action gerrymandering have no impact on public policy passed in Congress. Grose is the first to examine a natural experiment and exceptional moment in history in which black legislators – especially in the U.S. South – represented districts with a majority of white constituents. This is the first systematic examination of the effect of a legislator's race above and beyond the effect of constituency racial characteristics. Grose offers policy prescriptions, including the suggestion that voting rights advocates, the courts, and redistricters draw 'black decisive districts', electorally competitive districts that are likely to elect African Americans.
Download or read book Congressional Representation Constituents written by Brian Frederick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-04 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. House of Representatives has been frozen at 435 members for almost a century, and in that time the nation’s population has grown by more than 200 percent. With the number of citizens represented by each House member now dramatically larger, is a major consequence of this historical disparity a diminished quality of representation? Brian Frederick uses empirical data to scrutinize whether representation has been undermined by keeping a ceiling on the number of seats available in the House. He examines the influence of constituency size on several metrics of representation—including estimating the effects on electoral competition, policy responsiveness, and citizen contact with and approval of their representatives—and argues that now is the time for the House to be increased in order to better represent a rapidly growing country.
Download or read book Poor Representation written by Kristina C. Miler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poor are grossly underrepresented in Congress both overall and by individual legislators, even those who represent high-poverty districts.
Download or read book American Government 3e written by Glen Krutz and published by . This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.
Download or read book The Challenge of Congressional Representation written by Richard F. Fenno and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a moment when Congress is viewed by a skeptical public as hyper-partisan and dysfunctional, Richard Fenno provides a variegated picture of American representational politics. The Challenge of Congressional Representation offers an up-close-and-personal look at the complex relationship between members of Congress and their constituents back home.
Download or read book Representatives Roll Calls and Constituencies written by Morris P. Fiorina and published by Lexington, Mass : Lexington Books. This book was released on 1974 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Representational Style in Congress written by Justin Grimmer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-23 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates the consequences of legislators' strategic communication for representation in American politics. Representational Style in Congress shows how legislators present their work to cultivate constituent support. Using a massive new data set of texts from legislators and new statistical techniques to analyze the texts, this book provides comprehensive measures of what legislators say to constituents and explains why legislators adopt these styles. Using the new measures, Justin Grimmer shows how legislators affect how constituents evaluate their representatives and the consequences of strategic statements for political discourse. The introduction of new statistical techniques for political texts allows a more comprehensive and systematic analysis of what legislators say and why it matters than was previously possible. Using these new techniques, the book makes the compelling case that to understand political representation, we must understand what legislators say to constituents.
Download or read book Multiple Representation written by Ruoxi Li and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation project explores how elected legislators appease different segments of society when confronted with conflicts of interests. I demonstrate that legislators tailor their actions based on different levels of constituency issue attention, respond to multiple interests by behaving strategically across different stages of the legislative process, thus position themselves in the most favorable light. Findings from this project have implications for legislative representation, interest group politics, and political engagement. Specifically, the dissertation takes the format of three papers and tackles the research topic from three distinct and relevant angles. The first paper focuses on the effect of constituency issue attention on legislative behavior, including bill sponsorship, floor debate, and roll call votes. I argue that, when constituencies pay more attention to a particular policy issue, legislators are likely to be more diligent by participating more in the legislative process, and more responsive by better reflecting district preference in their roll call votes. Using the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) data which directly measure congressional district-level constituency attention, I find that, as expected, legislators increase their levels of legislative activities when constituencies show higher level of attentiveness to a particular issue; yet contrary to expectation, legislators do not become more responsive in their roll call votes when constituency pay more attention. In the second paper, I take a nuanced look at congressional representation by examining how constituencies, sub-constituencies, and interest groups influence bill co-sponsorship, floor debate, and final votes. With a formal model explaining the mechanism through which voters and interest groups influence legislators' behavior, I propose a multiple representation theory that argues 1) the general geographic constituency is represented through legislative voting decisions, 2) the engaged sub-constituencies and organized groups are represented through non-voting activities such as co-sponsorship and floor debate. Focusing on the House of Representatives, I include in the data direct measures of public opinion (CCES, 2006-2008), interest group contributions, and legislative activities including an original dataset for floor debate participation. I find that the geographic constituency has a strong effect on voting decisions yet very limited effect on co-sponsorship or floor debate. It is interest group membership and PAC donations that affect co-sponsorship and debate. This multiple representation pattern is found on almost all of the domestic issues. On international issues such as trade policies, representatives' partisan affiliation and ideology are the most influential factors; constituencies, sub-constituencies, and interest groups are of secondary importance. The third paper studies representation in the Senate. I begin by applying the multiple representation theory in the context of senatorial politics and examining the same ten policy issues. The results suggest that while there are important similarities between representation in the Senate and that in the House, there are also significant differences. The most important difference is that there is not a multiple representation pattern in the Senate. Senators appear to be unresponsive to the geographic constituencies. To understand the senators' seeming unrepresentativeness, I take into consideration the senate's electoral and institutional features and hypothesize that state size, heterogeneity, and senate election cycles play a mediating role. The results suggest that senators' longer term is partially responsible for the unresponsiveness. Senators facing immediate re-election are in fact highly responsive to the geographic constituency, but the rest of the senators are not. This contrast between the House and the Senate on responsiveness clarifies the mechanism of legislative accountability: responsiveness is closely related to the electoral pressure from imminent re-elections, as observed in the behavior among House representatives and senators who were in the last two years of their terms; when the electoral pressure was not an immediate concern, other considerations such as partisanship and ideology take priority, as observed in the behavior among senators who were in the earlier years of their terms.
Download or read book Sizing Up the Senate written by Frances E. Lee and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-10 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book raises questions about one of the key institutions of American government, the United States Senate, and should be of interest to anyone concerned with issues of representation.
Download or read book Home Style written by Richard F. Fenno and published by Addison-Wesley Longman. This book was released on 2003 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Home Style: House Members in Their Districts, the landmark study of eighteen representatives of Congress in their districts, by Richard F. Fenno, Jr., won the 1979 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award and the 1980 D. B. Hardeman prize. The text presents a coherent picture of what elected house members see when they view their constituencies, and how these perceptions affect their political behavior. During nearly eight years of research the author accompanied eighteen representatives of diverse backgrounds in their districts for a unique "over-the-shoulder" perspective on congressional home style. Professor Fenno's observational approach in enlivened with many examples and lends itself to a readable analysis." -- Publisher's description
Download or read book Elections Representation and Congressional Voting Behavior written by Robert Alan Bernstein and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: