Collaborative Research: Legislative Audiences and Dear Colleague Letters

合作研究：立法受众和亲爱的同事的信

• 批准号: 1627422
• 负责人: Dino Christenson
• 金额: $ 12.37万
• 依托单位: Trustees of Boston University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1627422&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Legislative; Audiences; Dear

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.

概要 民主代表权的基础是当选领导人代表选民的价值观。 这种观点为国会研究提供了很多依据，国会是一群关心自己选举命运的独立议员，但它并没有考虑到议员们必须与选民以外的竞争受众维持的关系。 该项目通过研究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，增进我们对国会行为的理解。 将国会视为立法机构及其受众的更大网络的一部分，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，同时也解决了对利益集团和国会的多元化和精英主义观点。 通过创建新的政策合作衡量标准和国会沟通数据集，该项目为成员之间、与利益团体之间的关系以及他们如何在当代立法机构的限制下确定优先事项提供了新的见解。 这项研究的结果将提供对立法环境内外的关系如何影响政策结果、立法机关的运作以及我们对民主代表权的理解的更全面的了解。技术摘要 该项目基于立法机关成员必须安抚的受众以及他们为此采取的行动，为立法行为提供了新的理论解释。 我们解决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 应用文本分析和网络方法方面的最新创新，根据亲爱的同事的信件创建了国会合作的新衡量标准。这些信件提供了对国会议员的政治目标和联盟战略的前所未有的见解，这对于研究政府各个部门的学者来说将是有用的。 定量分析辅以对国会工作人员的采访，以提供有关国会议员的动机和策略的更丰富的视角。 最终，这项研究的结果将使我们超越对国会的传统理解，来解释议员们在立法机构及其受众的复杂网络中必须维持的关系，并更清楚地了解这些关系如何影响国会制定的政策。