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November 2002 Titles
Are
national political influences in the United States diminishing the
distinctiveness of political interests within the individual states? Are state
interest communities becoming increasingly alike because of the devolution of
national policies, similarities in population structures across the states, the
integration of national and state lobbying organizations, and the diffusion of
lobbying tactics? Some recent research has found evidence of these nationalizing
tendencies but Wolak, Newmark, McNoldy, Lowery, and Gray present contrary
evidence in the first article in this issue of the Quarterly. They focus
on whether the same organizations lobby each of the 50 state legislatures, using
state lobby registration lists that include nearly 35,000 registrations. They
find that over half of these registrations are strictly local and that the
remainder are the product of the lobbying activities of a small number of
groups. The larger the economy of a state, the more distinctive the lobbying
communities within it. The authors conclude that there is strong evidence of the
localism of state interest groups despite powerful nationalizing forces in
politics. They explain that paradox by the rapid growth of institutions as
lobbying organizations and the propensity of institutions to lobby in only a
single state. Their research confirms the importance of comparative studies of
interest group representation across the states.
Another aspect of state legislative politics, the influence of governors over
their legislatures, is the subject addressed by Vicky M. Wilkins and Garry
Young. They examine the ability of governors to prevent the legislature from
overriding their vetoes. To explain variance in the governor’s influence, they
test Keith Krehbiel’s theory of Pivotal Politics against a theory of
partisan politics. They use data from two gubernatorial administrations in the
state of Missouri. Looking at “switchers,” legislators who vote one way on
the original passage of legislation and then change in response to a
governor’s veto, the authors try to establish whether the governor’s ability
to influence “switching” depends on the legislator’s policy indifference
or on the legislator’s party loyalty. With data from 18 vetoes and veto
override attempts between 1985 and 2000 in the state of Missouri, they find
initial evidence for Krehbiel’s pivotal politics explanation. Gubernatorial
influence to prevent overrides appears to depend on legislators’ policy
positions. But when that result is controlled for party, the evidence shows that
governors are most successful with members of their own party. The article
demonstrates the importance of using evidence from state legislatures to test
theories developed to explain congressional voting behavior.
The economic voting literature has largely sought to explain voting for
President. Thomas J. Rudolph believes that this emphasis has unduly affected how
researchers model the influence of citizens’ economic perceptions on their
votes for members of Congress. He examines whether the differences between the
public’s expectations of Congress and the President, and the differences
between the organization and timing of congressional and presidential elections,
leads the public to use different economic standards when evaluating President
and Congress. Rudolph uses aggregate time-series data on public approval of the
President and of Congress and concludes that while the public evaluates the
President by prospective perceptions of the direction of the economy, it
evaluates Congress by retrospective judgments of own economic condition. This is
a plausible consequence of different public expectations of each institution.
The public views the President as manager of the economy, but sees members of
Congress as advocates of constituents’ economic interests.
In the history of the U.S. Congress there have been occasional efforts by party
caucuses to impose voting discipline on their members. Matthew N. Green examines
one famous effort that was undertaken by the Democratic caucus while the party
held a majority between 1911 and 1919. Using data on the frequency of caucus
meetings, caucus attendance, and caucus action to bind its members on 15 pieces
of legislation, Green finds that the caucus was largely unsuccessful in
enforcing its decisions on members who had strongly differing views. What does
this experience reveal about the propensity of party caucuses to try to control
their members’ votes? With congressional voting data from 1889 to 1931, Green
tests theories derived from the recent literature on party voting in the House.
He shows that the propensity of caucuses to try to bind their members depends on
two factors: first, on the existence of party polarization on issues that cut
across party lines; and second, on the desire of members to present their party
to the electorate as a responsible, democratic, policy-making body. He suggests
that neither of these conditions have existed frequently in the past nor are
they likely to exist in the future.
Scholars are finding it increasingly profitable to test findings from research
on the U.S. Congress by research on other legislatures. Olga Shvetsova
undertakes that task in an unusual setting, that of the Russian Duma. She tests
the electoral connection—the correspondence between electoral and legislative
strategy. She questions why the Communist party, the clear favorite in the
election of 1995, decided not to contest 95 out of 225 constituencies without
any quid pro quo from other left-wing parties. She explains the Communist
strategy by its effect on the prospective position of the party in the Duma
after the election. Shvetsova shows that the Communists had an incentive to
permit other small left-wing parties to obtain just enough seats in the Duma to
attain minimal caucus status. That made their survival as caucuses, and their
right to participate in the influential Council of the Duma, dependent on the
willingness of the Communists to lend them a few members whenever their own
numbers fell below the threshold. Thereby the Communists, although lacking a
majority in the Duma, had effective control over two other factions This enabled
them to organize the House. Shvetsova’s case study is a fascinating example of
the connection between electoral and legislative strategy in a party-organized
legislature.
Among rapidly developing industrial countries, the city state of Singapore
offers a rarely studied and distinctive example of a parliamentary system under
one-party control. Hussin Mutalib describes the means used by the dominant
People’s Action Party, under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, to control
parliamentary decisions by manipulating the electoral system and unusual forms
of representation. The result is a unique parliamentary system that has the
appearance of emulating the British model while effectively giving a modernizing
elite control of the policy-making process.
—Gerhard Loewenberg