The Changing Structure of Federal Aid and the Politics of the Electoral Connection

联邦援助结构的变化和选举关系的政治

• 批准号: 0095997
• 负责人: Kenneth Bickers
• 金额: $ 38.66万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-02-15 至 2004-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0095997&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Changing; Structure; Federal; Aid; Politics

Considerable effort has been spent investigating the political consequences of the federal aid system. Previous research, has sought to link the formation of grant-seeking coalitions to the electoral fortunes of incumbents. The theoretical explanation and subsequent empirical tests of these relationships have centered almost exclusively on national and congressional politics. Missing in these studies has been a persuasive account of how the federal aid system has altered politics across levels of government. It is the supposition of this research team that by embedding state and local officials in networks of dependent relationships, the growth and changing character of the federal aid system has altered the electoral fortunes of elected officials at all levels of government. The investigators contend that changes in federal aid policies, by remaking relationships among stakeholders in federal aid programs, have had a significant affect on the career trajectories of elected officeholders, at both the congressional and subnational levels.The goal of this investigation is to examine the impact of changes in the federal aid system on the electoral trajectories of office holders at both the congressional and subnational levels. The investigators want to understand who runs, for what offices, and with what outcomes. The goal is to understand electoral trajectories in metropolitan areas across electoral offices. including congressional districts, county executives, and mayors offices. The reason for this is straightforward and compelling. Metropolitan areas reflect organic patterns of social and economic interactions . These interactions give rise to spillovers and the incentives and disincentives for inter jurisdictional cooperation, and thus create the potential for linking the electoral paths available to aspiring politicians.To accomplish these goals, the investigators update and extend the data series on federal domestic aid programs and their subnational distribution that they initiated in 1989 under a grant from the National Science Foundation. This database has been used by a wide cross-section of social scientists, and the researchers have received numerous requests for contemporaneous data on the status of domestic aid program attributes and their subnational distribution. Current data on the flow of federal aid does not adequately reflect structural changes resulting from devolution in the relationship between the federal and subnational governments. Devolution of federal policy responsibilities to subnational governments creates the need for a different type of data on the flow of federal aid moneys to recipients and beneficiaries. This project closes this information deficiency and creates a database that will be used widely by other scholars interested in the topic.

人们花了相当多的精力来调查联邦援助制度的政治后果。之前的研究试图将寻求资助的联盟的形成与现任者的选举命运联系起来。对这些关系的理论解释和随后的实证检验几乎完全集中在国家和国会政治上。在这些研究中缺失的是对联邦援助系统如何改变各级政府政治的有说服力的描述。该研究小组的假设是，通过将州和地方官员嵌入依赖关系网络，联邦援助体系的增长和变化特征改变了各级政府民选官员的选举命运。调查人员认为，联邦援助政策的变化，通过重塑联邦援助项目中利益相关者之间的关系，对国会和地方各级民选官员的职业轨迹产生了重大影响。本调查的目的是研究联邦援助制度的变化对国会和地方各级公职人员选举轨迹的影响。调查人员想知道是谁在掌权，为了什么职位，产生了什么结果。目的是通过各选举办公室了解首都地区的选举轨迹。包括国会选区、县长和市长办公室。原因很简单，也很有说服力。都市圈反映了社会和经济互动的有机模式。这些相互作用产生了溢出效应，并对司法管辖区之间的合作产生了激励和抑制作用，从而为有抱负的政治家提供了将选举途径联系起来的可能性。为了实现这些目标，研究人员更新并扩展了1989年在国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的资助下启动的联邦国内援助项目及其次国家分布的数据系列。该数据库已被广泛的社会科学家使用，研究人员已经收到了许多关于国内援助计划属性及其次国家分布状况的同期数据的请求。目前关于联邦援助流动的数据并没有充分反映出由于联邦和地方政府之间关系的权力下放而产生的结构性变化。将联邦政策责任下放给地方政府，需要一种不同类型的数据来记录联邦援助资金流向接受者和受益人的情况。该项目弥补了这一信息不足，并创建了一个数据库，将被其他对该主题感兴趣的学者广泛使用。