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John E Owens - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • explaining Party cohesion and Discipline in democratic legislatures purposiveness and contexts
    The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2003
    Co-Authors: John E Owens
    Abstract:

    Legislative Party Discipline and cohesion are important phenomena in the study of political systems. Unless assumptions are made that parties are cohesive and act as unified collectivities with reasonably well-defined goals, it is really difficult, if not impossible, to consider their electoral and legislative roles usefully. But levels of legislative Party cohesiveness are also important because they provide us with crucial information about how legislatures/ parliaments function and how they interact with executives/governments. Without cohesive (or Disciplined) parties,1 government survival in parliamentary systems is threatened because executive and legislative powers are fused while in separated systems presidents' bases of legislative support become less stable. How do we explain varying levels of legislative Party cohesion? The first part of this article draws on the purposive literature to explore the benefits and costs to legislators in democratic legislatures of joining and acting collectively and individualistically within political parties. This leads on to a discussion of various conceptual and empirical problems encountered in analysing intra-Party cohesion and Discipline in democratic legislatures on plenary votes. Finally, the article reviews the extant empirical evidence on how a multiplicity of systemic, Party-levels and situational factors supposedly impact cohesion/Discipline levels. The article ends with a discussion of the possibilities and limitations of building comparative models of cohesion/Discipline.

Elhanan Helpman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Party Discipline and pork barrel politics
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005
    Co-Authors: Gene M Grossman, Elhanan Helpman
    Abstract:

    Party Discipline and Pork-Barrel Politics by Gene M. Grossman Princeton University and Elhanan Helpman Harvard University December 2005 Abstract Polities di¤er in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex post incentives facing individual legislators, whose interests may be more parochial. We study how di¤erences in “Party Discipline” shape …scal policy choices. In particular, we examine the determinants of national spending on local public goods in a three-stage game of campaign rhetoric, voting, and legislative decision-making. We …nd that the rhetoric and reality of pork-barrel spending, and also the e¢ ciency of the spending regime, bear a non-monotonic relationship to the degree of Party Discipline. Keywords: political economy, electoral competition, public goods, Party politics JEL Classi…cation: D72, H41 We are grateful to Itay Fainmesser and Ran Melamed for outstanding research assistance and to Ken Shepsle, Dennis Epple and other participants at the meeting of the Political Institutions and Economic Policy (PIEP) Research Group for helpful comments and suggestions. We acknowledge with thanks the support of the National Science Foundation (SES 0211748 and SES 0451712) and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (2002132). Helpman’ work for this paper was done when he was Sackler Visiting Professor at Tel s Aviv University.

  • Party Discipline and pork barrel politics
    Research Papers in Economics, 2005
    Co-Authors: Gene M Grossman, Elhanan Helpman
    Abstract:

    Polities differ in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex post incentives facing individual legislators, whose interests may be more parochial. We study how differences in "Party Discipline" shape fiscal policy choices. In particular, we examine the determinants of national spending on local public goods in a three-stage game of campaign rhetoric, voting, and legislative decision-making. We find that the rhetoric and reality of pork-barrel spending, and also the efficiency of the spending regime, bear a non-monotonic relationship to the degree of Party Discipline.

Keith Krehbiel - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the coefficient of Party influence
    Research Papers, 2000
    Co-Authors: Keith Krehbiel
    Abstract:

    Synder and Groseclose (2000) 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 to 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 a types of partisan influence and signs of the coefficient is not one-to-one. Similarity, the coefficient has a responsiveness problem in that 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-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 drawback in the ongoing hunt for genuine Party Discipline.

  • Party Discipline and measures of partisanship
    American Journal of Political Science, 2000
    Co-Authors: Keith Krehbiel
    Abstract:

    Vote-based measures of partisanship have had a huge impact on the received wisdom about parties in the U.S. Congress. This article employs a cutpoint model to analyze how five such measures respond to changes in preference distributions and to different forms of behavior: Partybased Discipline and nonpartisan or unDisciplined behavior. Three sets of findings are central to ongoing research about parties in legislatures. (1) The well-known and widely used Party-voting score cannot discriminate between polar types of behavior. (2) All five measures encourage erroneous inferences of Party Discipline when only intraParty preference homogeneity may be present. (3) Of the four measures that can discriminate between partisan and nonpartisan behavior, historic congressional averages are often nominally high on a 0-100 scale, however, the averages tend to be closer to no-Discipline expectations than to Party-Discipline expectations. Cumulatively, these findings suggest that, labels notwithstanding, vote-based measures of partisanship are ineffective instruments for detecting genuine Partybased voting, Party strength, and leadership support.

Kees Boterbloem - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Gene M Grossman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Party Discipline and pork barrel politics
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005
    Co-Authors: Gene M Grossman, Elhanan Helpman
    Abstract:

    Party Discipline and Pork-Barrel Politics by Gene M. Grossman Princeton University and Elhanan Helpman Harvard University December 2005 Abstract Polities di¤er in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex post incentives facing individual legislators, whose interests may be more parochial. We study how di¤erences in “Party Discipline” shape …scal policy choices. In particular, we examine the determinants of national spending on local public goods in a three-stage game of campaign rhetoric, voting, and legislative decision-making. We …nd that the rhetoric and reality of pork-barrel spending, and also the e¢ ciency of the spending regime, bear a non-monotonic relationship to the degree of Party Discipline. Keywords: political economy, electoral competition, public goods, Party politics JEL Classi…cation: D72, H41 We are grateful to Itay Fainmesser and Ran Melamed for outstanding research assistance and to Ken Shepsle, Dennis Epple and other participants at the meeting of the Political Institutions and Economic Policy (PIEP) Research Group for helpful comments and suggestions. We acknowledge with thanks the support of the National Science Foundation (SES 0211748 and SES 0451712) and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (2002132). Helpman’ work for this paper was done when he was Sackler Visiting Professor at Tel s Aviv University.

  • Party Discipline and pork barrel politics
    Research Papers in Economics, 2005
    Co-Authors: Gene M Grossman, Elhanan Helpman
    Abstract:

    Polities differ in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex post incentives facing individual legislators, whose interests may be more parochial. We study how differences in "Party Discipline" shape fiscal policy choices. In particular, we examine the determinants of national spending on local public goods in a three-stage game of campaign rhetoric, voting, and legislative decision-making. We find that the rhetoric and reality of pork-barrel spending, and also the efficiency of the spending regime, bear a non-monotonic relationship to the degree of Party Discipline.