Policy as a Private Good: Firm-Lobbyist-Politician Networks in the Legislative Process

这个项目研究的是政治学中的一个关键问题，“谁执政？”它试图确定对决策施加更大影响的一组政治行为者。代表权是民主的基本支柱之一，确保公民有权向民选政府官员请愿，以影响政策。然而，大量文献表明，美国的政策制定过程是由拥有大量经济资源的个人主导的。特别重要的参与者包括那些精英拥有的公司，他们为竞选捐款、游说和政治支持，以增加他们在影响政府政策方面的影响力。尽管这种“不平等的代表性”意义重大，但对政治代表性的实证研究一直很有限，因为很难观察到政治行为者和政客之间的直接联系，更不用说驱动他们互动的真正潜在偏好了。拟议的项目将调查政治家以高度复杂的政策产出的形式直接代表特定公司的利益。调查员将开发一个理论框架，以确定企业投资于政治网络的条件。为了克服在确定公司和政客之间的联系方面的经验挑战，调查员将构建一个大型数据库，记录公司就国会法案进行游说的记录，以及它们与支持游说法案的立法者的政治联系。该项目不仅将提供对利益集团影响的宝贵见解，还将制作一个易于访问的网站，说明重要的参与者及其在政策进程中的立场。这对学者有很大的价值，也是一种宝贵的教学资源。技术摘要这个项目将开发一套用于分析政治关系的机器学习工具。具体地说，该项目将把政治学中广泛使用的理想点估计方法与源自计算机科学的潜在网络的概率模型结合起来。拟议方法的主要目标是确定公司、游说者和政客在一个共同的“意识形态”空间中的位置，在这个空间中，不同参与者的相对接近意味着更紧密的政治联系或利益结盟。拥有相似政治利益的公司、游说者和政客团体将聚集在一起。这一方法框架将使研究人员能够确定在各种政策层面普遍存在的政治网络。实施拟议方法的开放源码软件和整个数据库及其网络界面将向公众开放。

General AbstractThis project investigates a key question in political science, "Who governs?". It seeks to identify the set of political actors exert who greater levels of influence over policy-making. Representation is one of the fundamental pillars of democracy, ensuring citizens the right to petition elected government officials in order to influence policies. Yet, a vast literature has demonstrated that the policy-making process in the U.S. is dominated by individuals with substantial economic resources. Especially important players include the firms owned by those elites who make campaign contributions, lobby, and make political endorsements to increase their leverage in influencing government policies. Despite the significance of this "unequal representation," empirical studies of political representation have been limited because it is difficult to observe a direct link between political actors and politicians, let alone the true underlying preferences that drive their interactions. The proposed project will investigate the direct representation of specific firms' interests by politicians in the form of highly complex policy outputs. The investigator will develop a theoretical framework to identify the conditions under which firms invest in political networks. To overcome the empirical challenge in identifying the links between firms and politicians, the investigator will then construct a large database of records of firms' lobbying on congressional bills and their political connections to the legislators who sponsor lobbied bills. The project will not only provide valuable insight into the influence of interest groups, it will also produce an easily accessible website that will illustrate the important players and their positions in the policy process. This will be of great value to scholars, and will serve as a valuable teaching resource as well. Technical AbstractThis project will develop a set of machine learning tools used to analyze political connections. Specifically, the project will combine the methodologies of ideal point estimation widely used in political science with probabilistic models of latent networks originating in computer science. The primary goal of the proposed methodology is to identify the location of firms, lobbyists, and politicians in a common 'ideological' space in which the relative proximity of various participants implies a closer political connection or alignment of interests. Groups of firms, lobbyists, and politicians who share similar political interests will be clustered together. This methodological framework will allow researchers to identify political networks that are prevalent in various policy dimensions. The open-source software that implements the proposed methodology and the entire database with its web-interface will be made publicly available.