Searching for Symptoms of Political Shirking: Congressional Foreign Travel

Despite the hypothesized propensity for shirking to marklegislative institutions, the evidence is rather equivocal;moreover, most of the research has focused exclusively onlegislator voting, thereby constraining whatevergeneralizations might emerge. The purpose of this paper is tocontribute to the debate over the question of politicalshirking by extending the range of phenomena examined toinclude congressional foreign travel. Our analysis providesevidence that opportunism is a problem in Congress. We findthat last-period problems have arisen in the area of foreigntravel, and that increased scrutiny to the problem on the partof Congress only shifted consumption patterns, i.e.,legislators began taking foreign junkets near, but not at theend of, their legislative careers. Not all foreign travelshould be construed as worthless junketing since there isstrong evidence that some foreign travel is related tomembers' responsibilities on congressional committees.     

Representation, Voluntary Retirement, and Shirking in the Last Term

There is disagreement over whether or not representatives shirk.Previous studies, however, have used raw interest group scores thatdo not allow for accurate comparisons over time. I take advantageof recently published indexed ADA scores by Groseclose, Levitt, andSnyder (1999) that adjust for temporal differences to test forshirking. I compare results from adjusted ADA scores to Poole andRosenthal's Nominate scores. With a simple, straightforward test ofdyadic representation, I provide additional evidence that shirkingexists among voluntarily retiring members of Congress.     

Shirking and sorting in a political market with finite-lived politicians

This paper analyzes principal-agent slack in the context of a political market composed of voters, challengers, and incumbents. The introduction of a last period (via finite-livedness) in combination with voters' imperfect information about politicians' preferences causes time-varying shirking behavior on the part of politicians. Political markets eventually sort out those politicians with significantly deviant policy preferences, potentially providing a solution to the last period problem and enabling politicians to make credible commitments. In the extreme, sorting can insure that it is not worthwhile for potential shirkers to run for office. A systematic relationship between political shirking and number of terms in office may exist, and depends on how quickly sorting takes place. We show that evidence of little if any shirking is quite consistent with politicians having diverse and strongly held policy preferences. In addition, if sorting is a significant feature of political markets, cross-sectional studies will tend to oversample little- and non-shirking politicians compared to longitudinal studies. Reinterpretations of existing empirical work are also discussed.We wish to thank John Bond, Donald Deere, Gertrud Fremling, Tim Gronberg, Michael Munger, Russell Roberts, and the participants of workshops at Dartmouth College, Texas A&M University, University of Houston, University of Texas, Yale Law School, and the 1987 Public Choice Meetings for valuable discussions on earlier drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was issued as working paper E-87-34 by the Hoover Institution. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Sentencing Commission nor those of any of its Commissioners. Any remaining errors are of course our own.     

Connecting the Congress: A Study of Cosponsorship Networks

e-mail: jhfowler{at}ucdavis.edu Using large-scale network analysis I map the cosponsorship networksof all 280,000 pieces of legislation proposed in the U.S. Houseand Senate from 1973 to 2004. In these networks, a directionallink can be drawn from each cosponsor of a piece of legislationto its sponsor. I use a number of statistics to describe thesenetworks such as the quantity of legislation sponsored and cosponsoredby each legislator, the number of legislators cosponsoring eachpiece of legislation, the total number of legislators who havecosponsored bills written by a given legislator, and networkmeasures of closeness, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality.I then introduce a new measure I call "connectedness" whichuses information about the frequency of cosponsorship and thenumber of cosponsors on each bill to make inferences about thesocial distance between legislators. Connectedness predictswhich members will pass more amendments on the floor, a measurethat is commonly used as a proxy for legislative influence.It also predicts roll call vote choice even after controllingfor ideology and partisanship.     

Shirking and political support in the U.S. Senate, 1964–1984

Several empirical studies have suggested that legislators engage in a surprisingly large degree of on-the-job consumption, or ideological behavior. These findings cast doubt on the hypothesis that legislators can be modelled as though they seek to maximize political support. This paper attempts to determine whether commonly used proxies for ideology in fact represent behavior to which voters are averse. The results show that legislators who engage in more of this behavior lose general-election support without generally receiving compensating increases in partyprimary support. A corollary to this result is that voters punish shirking legislators significantly.     

改革开放以来我国收入分配制度改革的路径与成效——以公平与效率的双重标准为视角

通过梳理分配原则、分配格局、分配秩序等与收入分配制度密切相关的范畴的变迁历程,本文试图理清改革开放以来我国收入分配制度改革的基本脉络,并以公平与效率为标准来衡量其成效.研究表明,即使渐进、联动的收入分配制度改革导致了收入差距扩大和分配不公等不良现象,但是它对公平与效率增进的效果却是显著的.之所以出现如此成效,本文认为,坚持社会主义基本经济制度、市场化改革和政府的主导作用是根本原因.     

Managing the NATO alliance: Congress and burdensharing

The Congress has been an active partner in the transatlantic alliance from the negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty to the present day. Congressional perpectives have been substantially influenced by the desire to limit the U.S. share of the NATO burden. In recent years, U.S.—European differences over East—West relations, Third World security requirements, and other issues have intensified the burdensharng debate. Now some members of Congress are once again using the threat of unilateral U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe—the main source of congressional influence on the alliance—to pressure the Europeans to increase their defense efforts. Whether the recent focus on burdensharing will recede or grow in the next few years will depend on how the administration and the allies respond to the congressional pressure. In any case, Congress is likely to continue to insist on its due share of management rights in the NATO relationship.     

Jesse Burkhead and the Multiple Uses of Federal Budgets: A Contemporary Perspective

The work of Jesse Burkhead continues to have great relevance today. Its germaneness could be taken as an indictment of how little progress has been made in federal budgeting in the past half century, but it also says a great deal about Burkhead's insights and the lasting legacy of his work. This article discusses some of Burkhead's ideas on the use of the federal budget and their pertinence to the budget issues of today, including the role of the federal government in the economy, budgetary relations between presidents and Congresses, and the role of performance information in budgeting.     

Federalism in the 101st Congress

This article identifies important congressional roll-call votes,calculates a federalism score similar to that reported previouslyin Publius, and through factor analysis, examines the underlyingdimensions offederalism voting. The resulting federalism indicatorsare analyzed to determine their relationship to partisan andideological variables. Finally, the federalism orientation ofthe 101st Senate is compared with that of the 101st House ofRepresentatives as well as that of the 97th Senate.     

试论当代中国社会的公共话语

公共话语就是公众在公共领域里就公共事务自由公开的对话、讨论或意见表达,它与公共领域、公民文化密切相关.当代中国已经基本具备市民社会和公共领域的要件,这就为公共话语的形成提供了广阔的公共空间,也为社会各阶层的离散型公共话语培育了良好的生态语境.与西方发展不同,我国社会中的公共话语应该更多的是可协调的离散型公共话语,归宿是共识型公共话语.     

研究当代中国社会主义民主问题的新成果--评《当代中国民主问题研究》

中央党校政法教研部副主任李良栋教授的新著《当代中国民主问题研究》（当代世界出版社，２００１年８月），是作者多年潜心研究当代中国社会主义民主问题的结晶，是国内研究当代中国社会主义民主问题的新成果。 最近几年，随着社会主义市场经济的发展，社会主义民主法制建设的许多深层次的问题日益显现出来。我们的党政领导干部对这些问题有其特殊的敏感和感受。在中央党校学习的许多领导干部，在学习和研讨的过程中提出了许多重要的问题。比如，什么是社会主义民主？怎样理解社会主义民主从可能向现实的转化？如何总结社会主义民主政治建…