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- Title
Who Wins? Party Effects in Legislative Voting.
- Authors
Lawrence, Eric D.; Maltzman, Forrest; Smith, Steven S.
- Abstract
The article reports that the influence of party in the U.S. Congress is more crafty and more difficult to determine. It is difficult to decipher the effect of the individual member's preferences from party and constituency influence because there are only two parties and member preferences, constituency interest, and party interest overlaps each other. Under these circumstances there are both conceptual and measurement problems in isolating party influence. It is also very difficult to reach a conclusion from members' individual votes whether they are swayed by partisan considerations independent of their personal or constituency preferences, or to explain why they would be. The article compares four theories of congressional decision making and develops four models of how party and individual preferences may affect vote outcomes. By testing each model with data on the percentage of time that each member voted with the majority between 1979 and 1998, it concluded that the data best fit a majority party agenda control model of congressional voting.
- Subjects
UNITED States; UNITED States. Congress; UNITED States Congressional voting; LEGISLATIVE voting; UNITED States political parties; PARTY discipline; VOTING; DECISION making; POLITICIANS
- Publication
Legislative Studies Quarterly, 2006, Vol 31, Issue 1, p33
- ISSN
0362-9805
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3162/036298006X201724