The Strategic Use of Legislative Voting Procedures

Legislative votes can be taken by roll call—noting the position of each individual member—or by some form of indication (sitting or standing, shouting yea or nay, etc.)—noting only an aggregate outcome. Cameral rules define one method of voting as the standard operating procedure and how to invoke any alternative voting methods. We develop a series of hypotheses related to position taking to explain why, when procedures would typically lead to a vote taken by indication, legislators choose to vote by roll call—a means that makes it much easier for actors outside the chamber to observe the positions taken by individual legislators and partisan blocs. With data from Argentina and Mexico, we test these hypotheses regarding the strategic choice of vote procedures and their relationship to observed party unity.     

EXAMINING THE GENETIC UNDERPINNINGS TO MOFFITT'S DEVELOPMENTAL TAXONOMY: A BEHAVIORAL GENETIC ANALYSIS*

In recent years, criminological research has observed an increase in studies examining different offending trajectories. Much of this research has been guided by Moffitt's (1993) developmental taxonomy of life‐course persistent offenders, adolescence‐limited offenders, and abstainers. Moffitt (1993) argued that the etiologies of these different pathways could be traced to several biosocial factors, including perhaps genetic factors. To date, research has failed to address this possibility directly. The current study addressed this gap in the literature by examining the extent to which genetic factors explain variance in different offending patterns. Analysis of sibling pairs (N = 2,284; ages spanned between 11 and 27 years) drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) revealed that genetic factors contributed significantly to being classified in each of the different offending patterns. Specifically, genetic factors explained between 56 and 70 percent of the variance in being classified as a life‐course persistent offender across different coding strategies, 35 percent of the variance in being classified as an adolescence‐limited offender, and 56 percent of the variance in being classified as an abstainer. We discuss the importance of integrating genetics into future studies examining offending trajectories.     

The Calculus of Cosponsorship in the U.S. Senate

We investigated why a legislator would be willing to vote “yea” on final passage of a bill but would choose not to cosponsor that bill. We tested a series of hypotheses regarding the cosponsorship decisions of individual senators, using a dataset that includes every major initiative that was introduced and received a floor vote in the Senate between 1975 and 2000. We found that senators are more likely to cosponsor bills when their preferences diverge from the Senate median but are closer to those of the bill's sponsor. Also, senators are more likely to cosponsor bills when they sponsor a higher number of bills overall, when they become more connected with colleagues, and when their constituents increase demand for legislation within particular policy areas. Senators are less likely to cosponsor bills if they received a higher percentage of the general election vote in their most recent election.     

Influences on Detention Decisions in the Juvenile Justice System

This paper examines the pretrial detention of juveniles in County X located in a northeastern state. The sample (N=642) included Black, White, and Hispanic males and females adjudicated delinquent in the summer of 2000. The following independent variables were analyzed with respect to the dependent variable of pretrial detention: age, sex, address, race, current offense (misdemeanors, violent misdemeanors, felonies, violent felonies, and probation violations), prior offense (misdemeanors, violent misdemeanors, felonies, and violent felonies), and previous dispositions (community or placement). Several variables were found to be significant in increasing the odds of pretrial detention: probation violations, prior misdemeanors, prior residential placements, prior community interventions, age, sex, urban address, felonies, prior violent misdemeanors, and prior violent felonies. It was expected that minority youths would be more likely to be detained, but race was only significant in the absence of the variable of address. Urban youths were more likely to be detained resulting in an over‐representation of minorities in detention, since most of the minority population resides in the urban area. Also included is supplemental material based on interviews with defense lawyers, judges, masters, and juvenile probation officers.     

THE STATE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: A PROFESSIONAL HISTORY, 1970–1995

This article surveys developments in the profession of public administration in Britain in the 1980s. It explores: publications by analysing the contents of the leading journal; research grants through an analysis of ESRC awards; teaching through a resume of recent CNAA reports; and employment through a secondary analysis of the Political Studies Association's survey of the political science profession. Where possible, I compare the results with the findings of equivalent surveys in the US. These several surveys support five conclusions.     

Multicountry Studies of Latin American Legislatures: A Review Article

Electoral Laws and the Survival of Presidential Democracies. By Mark P. Jones. (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Pp. 246). Legislative Politics in Latin America. Edited by Scott Morgenstern and Benito Nacif. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. 503). Partidos Políticos de América Latina: Centroamérica, Mexico, y República Dominicana. By Manuel Alcántara Sáez and Flavia Friedenberg. (Salamanca, Spain: Biblioteca de América, 2001. Pp. 776). Partidos Políticos de América Latina: Cono Sur. By Manuel Alcántara Sáez and Flavia Friedenberg. (Salamanca, Spain: Biblioteca de América, 2001. Pp. 628). Partidos Políticos de América Latina: Paises Andinos. By Manuel Alcántara Sáez and Flavia Friedenberg. (Salamanca, Spain: Biblioteca de América, 2001. Pp. 680). Patterns of Legislative Politics: Roll Call Voting in Latin America and the U.S. By Scott Morgenstern. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. 224).¹ Politicians and Economic Reform in New Democracies. By Kent Eaton. (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Pp. 351).¹ Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. 493). Term Limits and Legislative Representation. By John M. Carey. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. 216).     

Contract Rights and Remedies,and the Divergence between Law and Morality*

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate in the philosophical and jurisprudential literature regarding the nature and possibility of Contract theory. On one hand, are those who argue (or assume) that there is, or should be, a single, general, universal theory of Contract Law, one applicable to all jurisdictions and all times. On the other hand, are those who assert that Contract theory should be localized to particular times and places, perhaps even with different theories for different types of agreements. This article considers one facet of this debate: evaluating the relevance of the fact that the remedies available for breach of contract can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. This wide variation in remedies for breach of a (contractual) promise is one central difference between promises in morality and enforceable agreements in law. The article asserts that variation of remedies strongly supports the conclusion that there is (and can be) no general, universal theory of Contract Law.     

Seen but Not Heard: Committee Visibility and Institutional Change in the Senate National Security Committees, 1947–2006

Scholars have neglected the effect of the press on political institutions in favor of media influences on campaigns or on voters' trust and information about government. This article examines senators' committee preferences in response to declining media coverage of Congress, focusing on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees from 1947 to 2006. The research relies on new, continuous measures of committee desirability and a unique dataset of congressional press coverage. Although both committees' visibility and attractiveness have declined dramatically over 60 years, statistical analyses indicate that change in internal rules and external events are the most important influences on senators' investment in committee careers.