Legislative Studies Quarterly最新文献

Do the separation of powers dynamics in the United States affect policymaking outcomes? Scholars and observers of national politics have long expected that they do, but since there has been little meaningful variation in the constitutional separation of powers system, it has been difficult to conduct empirical assessments. We turn to the American states, were there is variation from state to state in separation of powers institutions. Drawing on a dataset of hundreds of thousands of bills introduced to state legislatures, and the case of North Carolina giving its governor veto power in 1997, we find evidence that greater separation of powers institutions generally relate to less legislative productivity and less partisan lawmaking. However, these findings are meaningfully conditioned by the presence or absence of divided government, and there is some variation from state to state.

In bicameral legislatures, gender representation varies significantly between chambers. Historically, Japan's upper house has maintained a proportion of women twice that of the lower house. However, electoral systems alone cannot fully explain this disparity. We argue that seemingly gender-neutral legislative institutions influence both voting behavior and candidates' willingness to run, contributing to significant disparities in gender representation in bicameral legislatures. To test this argument, we conduct two survey experiments exploring the underlying mechanisms from the perspectives of voters and candidates. Our findings suggest that informing voters about the upper house's subordinate role increases support for female candidates in upper house elections. Furthermore, women display a greater willingness to pursue office when assured of job security in the upper house, while men exhibit less interest when made aware of its limited authority to appoint the prime minister. This study enhances our current understanding of the effects of asymmetrical institutions between chambers from a gender perspective.

This research note introduces CanberraInbox, a new, regularly updated dataset comprising the full text of all e-newsletters from Australian members of Parliament. The dataset addresses a gap in studying how legislators communicate, which has traditionally focused on national leaders. Communication by individual legislators is essential for understanding how electoral incentives drive elite political behavior, including the cultivation of the personal vote and different representational styles. This initial study, based on 868 e-newsletters collected between March and December 2024, finds that institutional incentives shape elite behavior, with legislators in their first term, those in marginal electorates, and those elected under a candidate-centric system being more likely to send e-newsletters than longer-serving legislators, those in safe seats, and those elected in a party-centric system. However, the finding about marginal seats compared to safe seats was not statistically significant. The CanberraInbox dataset allows for ongoing study of political communication and provides a valuable comparison to the US-based DCInbox and UK-based UKInbox. Future research can explore the content of these communications, examining factors like party discipline, gender differences, and policy emphasis, contributing to broader political science literature on representational role, focus and style, and electoral behavior.

Members of parliament (MPs), and by extension, parliamentary party groups (PPGs), have to make decisions about all aspects of public policy. In many parliamentary systems, PPGs subdivide the workload and assign one of their members as the spokesperson for a specific policy portfolio. These speak almost exclusively on that issue and are primarily responsible for formulating and articulating their party's position on that issue in parliament. We explore what drives the assignment of MPs as spokespersons for their PPG. Building on the literature on committee assignments, issue competition, and floor access in legislatures, we argue that the assignment of spokespersons should be understood as a process in which party leaders seek to balance the interests of their parties with the demands of individual MPs. We analyze a database covering the parliamentary and preparliamentary careers of Danish MPs (2011–2019), their electoral results, as well as the full text of floor speeches on legislation in this period. Our analysis sheds important light on how PPGs function. The results show that while the PPG leadership can sanction MPs who do not support the party line, the advantages for a PPG from having high-quality spokespersons means that the leaderships' hands are, to a large extent, tied.

We provide evidence that there are substantial racial and gender gaps among lobbyists. These gender and racial differences are also greater among conservative leaning groups. However, we show, these gaps are decreasing over time. Does demand for minority and female lobbyists play a role in these trends? Although previous work has highlighted the relative scarcity of women and minorities in positions leading to the lobbyist profession (supply), we know less about whether interest groups are interested in hiring qualified women and minorities for such positions (demand). Using a conjoint experiment embedded in a survey of individuals involved in hiring lobbyists, we find greater demand for female and minority lobbyists than for their male and White counterparts, especially among ideological liberals. Our work shows that the lobbying industry does not appear to discount the candidacies of potential female and minority lobbyists.

Turnover among legislators encourages lobbyists to exit their profession since turnover is associated with decreased wages and increased workplace stress for lobbyists. I examine the exits of 5566 lobbyists who registered in eighteen states in 1973. Turnover among legislators is associated with increased rates of exit among lobbyists. I also test for whether various individual traits determine exit. Contrary to expectations, former legislators who lobby are not more likely to exit in response to turnover among incumbents than other lobbyists, including turnover in the chambers in which they served. These findings suggest that legislator turnover ends relationships with lawmakers or reduces skills among lobbyists, but that non-revolver lobbyists are more affected by such turnover than others. These findings matter for institutional reforms that affect legislative turnover, and the representation of organized interests.

While academics have examined how term limits affect elected officials, little work has gone into understanding the way they alter challenger behavior. I argue that they reduce the number of candidates who challenge incumbents, leading to a lock-in effect. By increasing the frequency of open races, term limits incentivize potential challengers to wait for an open race. To demonstrate this, I analyze primary data from 85 legislative chambers in 44 states over a two-decade period to see how term limits alter challenger entry patterns. I show that term-limited incumbents face fewer challengers in their last two terms in office and challenges are weaker, while competition for open races ramps up. In doing so, I provide a major insight into how term limits alter challenger decision-making to run for entry-level office while improving our understanding of candidate entry by accounting for multiple potential points of entry.