Senate Representation and Coalition Building in Distributive Politics

Lee, Frances E.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511816406.012

Cited by 33 publications

(49 citation statements)

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“…10 7 Congressional scholarship has defined pork-or distributive politics-in a variety of ways. For instance, Stein and Bickers (1995) look at programmatic policies that distribute federal funds, while Lee (2000) Finally, as evidenced by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, more commonly known as the Wall Street bailout bill, earmarks are perceived by the media as deal breakers in the legislative process. With the bailout, the media credits the switch of fifty-eight representatives to favoring the second version of the bill to the addition of "sweeteners designed to increase support among Republicans.…”

Section: Pork Barrel Spending and The Deficitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception and Reality in Congressional Earmarks

Crespin¹,

Finocchiaro

Wanless³

2009

The Forum

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Earmarks added to appropriations bills have generated a considerable amount of attention from the media, politicians, and fiscal watchdog groups. Taken as a whole, three truths" about earmarks are frequently discussed: 1) earmarks are the reason for large budget deficits, 2) using omnibus legislation instead of regular order leads to more earmarks, and 3) airdropped" earmarks added at the conference stage compound the problem of pork. In this paper, we examine these truths" and find the conventional wisdom does not stand up to empirical tests. Finally, we show how Congress easily worked around new rules concerning the addition of earmarks at the conference stage.

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Section: Pork Barrel Spending and The Deficitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception and Reality in Congressional Earmarks

Crespin¹,

Finocchiaro

Wanless³

2009

The Forum

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“…But since that work, the empirical results of studies on the relevance of committees have been mixed (Berry et al, 2010: 784;Kriner and Reeves, 2012: 349). One side of the literature has found that larger delegations and committee membership affect federal distribution (Holcombe and Zardkoohi, 1981: 397;Grossman, 1994: 299), but several other studies have found mixed results for this claim (Lee, 2000;Atlas et al, 1995;Balla et al, 2002;Bickers and Stein, 2000).…”

Section: The Role Of Congress Presidents and Governors In Distributmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Distributes? Presidents, Congress, Governors, and the Politics of Distribution in Argentina and Brazil

González¹,

Mamone²

2015

RIEL

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Abstract. What is the role of presidents in the politics of distribution in developing democracies? To whatextent do other political actors, such as legislators and governors, influence federal distribution? This paper studies the main factors that affect distributive politics in Argentina and Brazil, two highly unequal presidential federations in Latin America. The focus is on funds with high redistributive impact and over which the central government has large discretion: those for public infrastructure. Using original data on federal infrastructure spending for the 24 provinces in Argentina and the 27 states in Brazil for the period 1999-2011, we show that the distribution of infrastructure funds is fundamentally determined by executive politics. Despite this, our empirical findings indicate there is large variation between the two cases in the relevance of the partisan links between presidents and governors and the influence of congress and its committees. Furthermore, we observe that elections are not relevant in explaining distribution in either of the two cases and that presidents are mostly motivated by political considerations and that programmatic factors, such as equity and efficiency criteria, play a secondary role, especially in Argentina. We discuss some possible reasons for these results and their implications for the broader comparative debate on distributive politics.

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“…Empirical studies in economics and political science have discovered that overrepresented regions appear to receive substantially larger per capita shares of government expenditures (1)(2)(3)(4). This research consists primarily of single-country studies, most of them focusing on the United States (5-11).…”

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confidence: 99%

Representation and redistribution in federations

Dragu

Rodden

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Many of the world's most populous democracies are political unions composed of states or provinces that are unequally represented in the national legislature. Scattered empirical studies, most of them focusing on the United States, have discovered that overrepresented states appear to receive larger shares of the national budget. Although this relationship is typically attributed to bargaining advantages associated with greater legislative representation, an important threat to empirical identification stems from the fact that the representation scheme was chosen by the provinces. Thus, it is possible that representation and fiscal transfers are both determined by other characteristics of the provinces in a specific country. To obtain an improved estimate of the relationship between representation and redistribution, we collect and analyze provincial-level data from nine federations over several decades, taking advantage of the historical process through which federations formed and expanded. Controlling for a variety of country-and province-level factors and using a variety of estimation techniques, we show that overrepresented provinces in political unions around the world are rather dramatically favored in the distribution of resources.W hen independent political units assemble to create larger entities, they often become embroiled in disputes over representation. Should each unit receive equal representation regardless of size or should representation be based on population? These battles are often fierce in nascent political unions because of the belief that the nature of representation will affect the distribution of resources across regions well into the future.In some of the world's largest democracies, the territorial representation scheme in place today had its roots in a federal bargain from the distant past that left some regions, like New York or Buenos Aires, with far fewer seats per capita than other regions, like Wyoming or La Rioja. In large or diverse nascent political unions like the European Union, Iraq, or Afghanistan, a federal institutional structure that deviates substantially from the principle of "one person, one vote" is often viewed as a requirement for peace and stability.For these federations old and new, an important but unanswered question lingers: To what extent do asymmetries in representation lead to corresponding asymmetries in government policy? Empirical studies in economics and political science have discovered that overrepresented regions appear to receive substantially larger per capita shares of government expenditures (1-4). This research consists primarily of single-country studies, most of them focusing on the United States (5-11).The fact that the representation structure emerged from a bargain among provinces, however, presents a fundamental challenge to empirical estimation of the relationship between representation and redistribution. It is possible that the most independently powerful provinces can most effectively extract both fiscal transfers and advantageous l...

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Senate Representation and Coalition Building in Distributive Politics

Cited by 33 publications

References 1 publication

Perception and Reality in Congressional Earmarks

Perception and Reality in Congressional Earmarks

Who Distributes? Presidents, Congress, Governors, and the Politics of Distribution in Argentina and Brazil

Representation and redistribution in federations

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