Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Explaining the Use and Policy Impact of Conference Committees

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The United States Congress is among the institutions most closely studied by political scientists, and with good reason. The House and Sentate provide excellent laboratories in which to examine theories of collective decision making. Likewise, the relationship between the House and Senate provides a setting in which to consider how strategic political actors coordinate. However, to the extent that these issues are addressed by scholars of Congress, they are analyzed in isolation. Scores of studies examine the problems of collective choice idiosyncratic to Congressional chambers. A smaller set of studies examines how chambers coordinate on policy. This project combines both approaches and examines how mechanisms of collective choice with chambers and coordination between chambers interact to influence policy outcomes and the chambers' decisions about internal organization.This project focuses on the use and impact of conference committees, a formal netotiation between members of the House and Senate that produces a compromise bill. How bills arrive at a conference and the legislators that serve as conferees have significant bearing on the types of policies conferences produce. Information related to these issues are provided in Congressional publications like the Claendars of the the United States House of Representatives, but an easily analyzed version is currently unavailable publicly. Data collect from thses volumes as part of this project will provide a perspective on the ways that the House and Senate make intra-chamber choices and inter-chamber compromises.The interaction of issues associated with collective choice and coordination between groups has implications for many other social phenomena that fall outside of the scope of subjects typically addressed by political scientists. Hiring and tenure decisions are made by groups that benefit from coordinated action but subject to internal requirements to make a socil choice. Decisons made by share holders and corporate boards in the realm of corporate governance also serve as an analogy to the Congressional provlems of collective choice and coordination between groups with potentially conflicting interests.