HIS ARTICLE examines the distribution of total and pro-T grammatic spending among congressional districts and advances JL two major hypotheses based upon recent trends in congressional behavior and policy-making to explain some significant part of those allocations. Its thesis suggests that altered patterns of influence in what has been described as the &dquo;New Congress&dquo; have produced sometimes contradictory tendencies to allocate spending both universally and redistributively among congressional districts. Perceptible linkages have thus been forged between congressional processes and comprehensive district allocations. The empirical conclusions are both theoretically reinforcing and novel, since past scholarship has failed to establish meaningful connections between comprehensive (and often programmatic) district spending and either the internal organization of congressional power or the socioeconomic characteristics of congressional districts.Below, a brief overview of prior studies in this field is offered, followed by a presentation of the propositions explored in the subsequent empirical analysis of district spending.
The extent to which levels and trends in local unemployment and income influenced the Conservative vote in 633 separate British constituency elections in 1983 is estimated in several regression models. Long‐term influences on voting are controlled by the endogenous variables of social class and territoriality. It is argued that this research design is superior to previous ones that have treated general elections as national elections in exploring the economic theory of voting. Sensitivity analysis (the use of several models to illuminate the research problem posed) suggests that, unlike America congressional elections, current rates and trends in local unemployment and income exerted a substantial and systematic influence on constituency voting.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.