Collaborative Research: Legislative Audiences and Dear Colleague Letters

民主代表制的基础是选举产生的领导人代表选民的价值观。这种观点在对国会的研究中起到了很大作用，国会是一群关心自己选举命运的独立议员的集合，但它没有考虑到议员们必须与选民以外的竞争受众保持的关系。本项目通过考察国会议员如何平衡六种不同受众（选民、政党、同事、贡献者、利益集团和媒体）的期望，增进了我们对国会行为的理解。将国会视为更大的立法机构及其受众网络的一部分，可以更全面地了解议员的行为，从而更好地反映21世纪国会的现实，同时也可以解决对利益集团和国会的多元化和精英主义观点。通过创建一种新的政策合作衡量标准和一套国会沟通数据，该项目为议员与利益集团之间的关系以及他们如何在当代立法机构的约束下确定优先事项提供了新的见解。这项研究的结果将使我们更全面地了解立法环境内外的关系如何影响政策结果、立法机构的运作以及我们对民主代表制的理解。本项目基于立法机构成员必须安抚的受众以及他们为安抚受众所采取的行动，为立法行为提供了一种新的理论解释。我们讨论国会议员如何利用利益集团推进自己的议程，议员如何从与同事的合作中受益，以及议员如何选择优先考虑和促进不同类型的立法等重要问题。pi运用最近在文本分析和网络方法方面的创新，基于“亲爱的同事”信件，创建了一种新的国会合作衡量标准。这些信件对国会议员的政治目标和联合策略提供了前所未有的深入了解，这对研究政府各部门的学者来说都很有用。定量分析的补充是与国会工作人员的访谈，以便对国会议员的动机和策略提供更丰富的视角。最终，这项研究的结果将使我们能够超越对国会的传统理解，以解释议员必须在立法机构及其受众的复杂网络中保持的关系，并提供这些关系如何影响国会制定政策的更清晰图景。

General Summary Democratic representation is based on the ideal that elected leaders represent the values of the electorate. This view has informed much of the study of Congress as a collection of independent members concerned with their electoral fortunes, yet it does not account for the relationships that members must maintain with competing audiences beyond the voters. This project advances our understanding of congressional behavior by examining how members of Congress balance the expectations of six distinctive audiences: voters, parties, colleagues, contributors, interest groups, and the media. Viewing Congress as part of a larger network of the legislature and its audiences leads to a fuller understanding of the behavior of members that better reflects the realities of the 21st century Congress, while also addressing pluralist and elitist perspectives on interest groups and Congress. Through the creation of a new measure of policy collaboration and a data set of congressional communications, this project provides new insights into the relationships between members, with interest groups, and how they set priorities within the constraints of the contemporary legislature. The results of this research will provide a more comprehensive understanding of how relationships inside and outside of the legislative environment affect policy outcomes, the functioning of the legislature, and our understanding of democratic representation. Technical Summary This project offers a new theoretical explanation of legislative behavior based on the audiences that members of legislature must appease and the actions that they take to do so. We address important questions of how members of Congress use interest groups to advance their own agenda, how members benefit from collaboration with their colleagues, and how members choose to prioritize and promote different types of legislation. The PIs apply recent innovations in text analysis and network methods to create a new measure of collaboration in Congress based on Dear Colleague letters. These letters provide unprecedented insight into the political objectives and coalition strategies of members of Congress that will be of use to scholars studying each of the branches of government. Quantitative analyses are supplemented by interviews with congressional staff to provide a richer perspective on the motivations and strategies of members of Congress. Ultimately, the results of this research will allow us to move beyond the traditional understanding of Congress to account for the relationships that members must maintain within a complex network of the legislature and its audiences and provide a clearer picture of how these relationships affect the policies produced by Congress.