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In
cross-national perspective, it is one of the anomalies of the political system
of the
Representation
is a defining characteristic of parliaments and legislatures, but it is a
protean concept that is difficult to pin down. Giving it empirical referents has
always been a challenge. As a relationship between voters and legislators, the
dominant conceptualization has been the one developed by John Wahlke, Heinz
Eulau, and their associates in their influential but neglected book, The
Legislative System (1962). They distinguished among members as
“delegates,” “trustees,” and “politicos.” Rudy B. Andeweg and
Jacques J.A. Thomassen propose an alternative typology making use of the
principal-agent framework derived from microeconomics and increasingly applied
to political relationships. It has the advantage of taking account of both ex
ante and ex post control. They combine that distinction with the distinction
between legislators initiating actions, for which they are held accountable, and
constituents imposing demands, which require legislators’ responsiveness.
Andeweg and Thomassen demonstrate the utility of the resulting four-fold
typology by using it to analyze data from a study of Dutch voters and MPs. They
conclude that the modes of representation that they have identified can be
operationalized to study representative relationships across political systems
and can overcome the problems long associated with the Wahlke-Eulau typology.
Research
on coalition formation has focused on the relationship between cabinets and the
lower house of bicameral parliaments, on the valid ground that upper chambers
lack the constitutional power to overthrow governments. But upper chambers do
have varying influence in the legislative process and may therefore affect the
success or failure of cabinets. James N. Druckman, Lanny W. Martin, and Michael
F. Thies investigate eight European bicameral systems in the post World War II
period and show that coalitions are more likely to form when they have a
majority in the upper as well as the lower chamber of parliament. Their data
include conceivable coalitions as well as those actually formed. Control of the
upper house matters in the formation of governing coalitions because the
influence of upper houses on policy matters in spite of their exclusion from the
constitutional process of appointing the cabinet. Interestingly, it matters
regardless of the extent of upper-house power in policy making. This is
consistent with theories of bicameralism, which have shown that even a mere
delaying-power of an upper house can be influential.
The
three remaining articles in this issue of the Quarterly deal with
campaign finance and with gender-specific aspects of careers of members of the
U.S. House of Representatives. In financing elections in the
We
know a good deal about the factors influencing retirement from the U.S. House of
Representatives. The importance of voluntary exit has risen because as the
advantage of incumbency has grown, retirement has become the principal source of
membership turnover. However, there has not been research on gender-specific
factors influencing voluntary retirement because of the relatively small number
of women in the House until recently. Yet we know that women have substantially
shorter careers than men and this has implications for their effectiveness in an
institution favoring seniority. Jennifer L. Lawless and Sean M. Theriault
analyze data on voluntary retirement over two decades, from 1983 to 2002, and
find that among other factors, reaching a ceiling in a member’s congressional
career is a significant influence on retirement. They show that the impact of
this factor is much stronger for women than for men. Their explanation is that
women are more policy-oriented than men. When they sense that their
policy-effectiveness has reached a limit, their propensity to retire is stronger
than it is for their male colleagues.
One of the characteristics of congressional campaign finance is that members can contribute to each other’s campaigns themselves or through “leadership” political action committees. Doing so increases a member’s influence in the House. Eric S. Heberlig and Bruce A. Larson investigate which members are most likely to contribute to the campaigns of others, analyzing data on incumbent members of the House during the 1990s. They note a dramatic increase in these contributions over the decade, apparently in response to the Republican takeover in 1994. The article concludes that at a time of narrow majorities and polarized parties, members of Congress became increasingly willing to support their colleagues in an effort to gain or preserve their party’s majority and the leadership positions that majority status confers.
—Gerhard Loewenberg