POWRE: Confirmation Politics: New Perspectives on Legislative-Executive Gridlock

POWRE：确认政治：立法-行政僵局的新视角

• 批准号: 9805772
• 负责人: Sarah Binder
• 金额: $ 4.82万
• 依托单位: Brookings Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-08-01 至 1999-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9805772&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: POWRE; Confirmation; Politics; New; Perspectives

The causes and consequences of political gridlock figure prominently in much recent research in the field of legislative politics. Most such research, however, focuses on conflict between Congress and the President and its impact on lawmaking and congressional investigations. This project builds on recent insights from legislative scholarship and applies them to a study of inter-branch conflict between Congress and the President over the political shape of the federal courts. Intra- and inter-branch conflict, it is argued, affect not only policy outcomes, but the shape of political institutions as well. The objectives of the project are to conduct a pilot study in which the feasibility of a new approach to modeling inter-branch conflict will be explored. The investigator will develop a new database on federal judicial nominations and will use the data to test a dynamic, institutional theory of political conflict. As a pilot study, the database will focus on appellate court judgeships, and will provide the first comprehensive collection of data on nominations and confirmation fate of circuit court nominees to the federal bench between 1947 and 1997. The impact of the project can be measured in several ways. First, the collection of data will enhance judicial scholars' ability to focus on judicial politics at the lower court level, rather than the more commonly studied Supreme Court. Second, it will expand other lower court databases. Third, it will provide a means for assessing recent empirical claims about changes in the political character of the nomination process. Fourth, it will enhance our theoretical understanding of the endogeneity of political institutions, adding to a newly emerging literature on the determinants of political institutions and their change over time. This POWRE grant will have an important impact on the investigator's professional development. It will enable the PI, currently at the Brookings Institution, to further develop her research agenda on the evolution of political institutions by expanding her substantive focus and her methodological approaches. Because Brookings scholars normally seek funding from external private foundations, and because such foundations are more interested in tangible policy recommendations than the development and testing of theories of politics, this award will be invaluable support for the PI's intellectual and professional development.

在立法政治领域最近的研究中，政治僵局的原因和后果是突出的。然而，大多数这样的研究集中在国会和总统之间的冲突及其对立法和国会调查的影响。这个项目建立在立法学术的最新见解的基础上，并将其应用于研究国会和总统之间关于联邦法院政治形态的部门间冲突。有人认为，部门内部和部门间的冲突不仅会影响政策结果，还会影响政治机构的形态。该项目的目标是进行一项试验性研究，探讨建立分支机构间冲突模型的新办法的可行性。调查员将开发一个关于联邦司法提名的新数据库，并将使用这些数据来测试关于政治冲突的动态、制度化理论。作为一项试点研究，该数据库将侧重于上诉法院法官职位，并将首次全面收集1947至1997年间巡回法院被提名人的提名和确认命运的数据。该项目的影响可以用几种方式来衡量。首先，数据的收集将增强司法学者关注下级法院而不是更常被研究的最高法院的司法政治的能力。其次，它将扩大其他下级法院的数据库。第三，它将为评估最近关于提名过程政治性质变化的经验说法提供一种手段。第四，它将增强我们对政治制度内生性的理论理解，为一本关于政治制度的决定因素及其随时间变化的新文献增添内容。这笔POWRE补助金将对调查员的职业发展产生重要影响。这将使目前在布鲁金斯学会的国际政治学会通过扩大她的实质性重点和她的方法论方法，进一步发展她关于政治机构演变的研究议程。由于布鲁金斯学会的学者通常从外部私人基金会寻求资金，而且这些基金会更感兴趣的是切实的政策建议，而不是政治理论的发展和测试，因此这个奖项将对国际政治学会的智力和职业发展提供无价的支持。