POWRE: Confirmation Politics: New Perspectives on Legislative-Executive Gridlock

政治僵局的原因和后果在立法政治领域的许多最新研究中占有突出地位。然而，大多数此类研究的重点是国会与总统之间的冲突及其对立法和国会调查的影响。该项目建立在立法学者最近的见解基础上，并将其应用于国会与总统之间关于联邦法院政治形态的分支间冲突的研究。他们认为，部门内部和部门之间的冲突不仅影响政策结果，还影响政治制度的形态。该项目的目标是进行一项试点研究，在该研究中，将探索一种对分支间冲突建模的新方法的可行性。调查人员将开发一个关于联邦司法提名的新数据库，并将使用这些数据来检验政治冲突的动态制度理论。作为一项试验性研究，该数据库将集中于上诉法院的法官职位，并将首次全面收集关于1947年至1997年联邦法官提名和确认巡回法院提名人命运的数据。项目的影响可以用几种方法来衡量。首先，数据的收集将增强司法学者关注下级法院司法政治的能力，而不是更普遍研究的最高法院。其次，它将扩展其他下级法院的数据库。第三，它将提供一种手段来评估最近关于提名过程的政治特征变化的实证主张。第四，它将增强我们对政治制度内生性的理论理解，为政治制度的决定因素及其随时间变化的新出现的文献增加内容。这项power资助将对研究者的专业发展产生重要影响。这将使目前在布鲁金斯学会工作的首席研究员能够通过扩大她的实质性重点和方法方法，进一步发展她关于政治制度演变的研究议程。由于布鲁金斯学会的学者通常会向外部私人基金会寻求资助，而且这些基金会对切实可行的政策建议更感兴趣，而不是对政治理论的发展和检验，因此这一奖项将对布鲁金斯学会的智力和专业发展提供宝贵的支持。

The causes and consequences of political gridlock figure prominently in much recent research in the field of legislative politics. Most such research, however, focuses on conflict between Congress and the President and its impact on lawmaking and congressional investigations. This project builds on recent insights from legislative scholarship and applies them to a study of inter-branch conflict between Congress and the President over the political shape of the federal courts. Intra- and inter-branch conflict, it is argued, affect not only policy outcomes, but the shape of political institutions as well. The objectives of the project are to conduct a pilot study in which the feasibility of a new approach to modeling inter-branch conflict will be explored. The investigator will develop a new database on federal judicial nominations and will use the data to test a dynamic, institutional theory of political conflict. As a pilot study, the database will focus on appellate court judgeships, and will provide the first comprehensive collection of data on nominations and confirmation fate of circuit court nominees to the federal bench between 1947 and 1997. The impact of the project can be measured in several ways. First, the collection of data will enhance judicial scholars' ability to focus on judicial politics at the lower court level, rather than the more commonly studied Supreme Court. Second, it will expand other lower court databases. Third, it will provide a means for assessing recent empirical claims about changes in the political character of the nomination process. Fourth, it will enhance our theoretical understanding of the endogeneity of political institutions, adding to a newly emerging literature on the determinants of political institutions and their change over time. This POWRE grant will have an important impact on the investigator's professional development. It will enable the PI, currently at the Brookings Institution, to further develop her research agenda on the evolution of political institutions by expanding her substantive focus and her methodological approaches. Because Brookings scholars normally seek funding from external private foundations, and because such foundations are more interested in tangible policy recommendations than the development and testing of theories of politics, this award will be invaluable support for the PI's intellectual and professional development.