Legislative professionalization typically involves two concomitant processes: increasing institutional resources and increasing careerism among state legislators. These processes, we argue, entail different effects for legislative influence on state administrative agencies. Greater legislative resources serve to increase legislative influence, but greater political careerism among state legislators serves to decrease it. Because these two processes are normally intertwined within the process of legislative professionalization, the net effect of professionalism is uncertain, although our analysis suggests that the negative effect of careerism may outweigh the positive effect of institutional resources. These results have significant implications for the democratic responsiveness of executive branch agencies.
To understand world politics, one must appreciate the context in which international systems develop and operate. Pedagogy studies demonstrate that the more active students are in their learning, the more they learn. As such, using computer simulations can complement and enhance classroom instruction. CIVILIZATION is a computer simulation game that allows players to build a civilization, competing against other civilizations. As players manage resources to develop their civilizations, establish diplomatic relations with other civilizations, strengthen trade relations, and engage in military and peace alliances, they become immersed in a simulated international system. This article explores the value of using CIVILIZATION as an active learning approach to teach international relations, focusing on the many ways in which students can better understand and appreciate the defining concepts, as well as the complexities, of international politics through playing a computer game.CIVILIZATION is a computer simulation game designed to build civilizations. 1 Success is contingent on strategizing at the domestic and international levels by managing resources to advance the civilization through various historical eras, developing diplomatic relations with other civilizations, establishing trade relations, and engaging in military and peace alliances. We propose that students can better understand abstract international relations concepts with the aid of CIVILIZATION. This active-learning approach can be a valuable tool in the classroom because of the fun and exciting way that information is conveyed, the diverse perspectives provided through role-play, and
This research focuses on the relationship between state legislative professionalism and legislative influence in state agencies. Principal-agent theory, which provides the theoretical underpinning for this research, suggests that there should be a positive relationship between legislative professionalism and legislative influence. King's (2000) legislative professionalism measure, along with a 1995 survey of state administrators in 15 states, are used to test this theory. The results of this analysis show that while there is a statistically significant relationship between legislative professionalism and legislative influence in agencies, the relationship is not in the expected direction. Additionally, legislative professionalism is not the strongest of the examined predictors of legislative influence. While the increased legislative capability of more professionalized legislatures may make them better able to influence agencies, based on these findings they do not appear to be particularly interested in exerting more influence over agencies. Potential reasons for which are discussed. w h i l e both the iron triangle and the issue network models have contributed to our understanding of the policy process, neither seems to provide a particularly strong theoretical vantage point for the study of influence relationships between state legislatures and state bureaucratic agencies. An alternative approach is principal-agent theory in which bureaucratic agencies are viewed as agents of numerous institutional and noninstitutional actors, or principals.The ruison d'Etre for principal-agent relationsliips is the inability or unwillingness of the principal to accomplish a certain task, or range of related tasks, him or herself. Given this, the agent is in a somewhat unique
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