Collaborative Research on a Relational Database on Historical Congressional Statistics, 1788-1992

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9318536 Hibbing This project creates a relational database on congressional history, 1788-1992, that permits secholars, for the first time, to use easily an unprecedented range of variables pertaining to congressional careers, committees, elections, party and roll call voting, presidential relations, and workload. Some of the material to be contained in the new database is now archived in separate Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research databases; other major aspects will be newly created. What is truly path-breaking about the project, however, is not only the range and scope of the data, but its relational structure. Scholars will be able to link easily data on different congressional dimensions, facilitating the study of their interrelationship in ways that until now have been virtually impossible. Project participants will apply this data to their own research on the development of congressional careers; the institutional impact of party realignments; the institutional effects of elections; the development of congressional-presidential relations; and the potential of national legislatures to resolve sectional conflict. These are but a few examples of the various kinds of topics scholars will be able to undertake more easily and more comprehensively. ***