Scholars have often remarked that Congress neglects its oversight responsibility. We argue that Congress does no such thing: what appears to be a neglect of oversight really is the rational preference for one form of oversight-which we call fire-alarm oversight-over another form-police-patrol oversight. Our analysis supports a somewhat neglected way of looking at the strategies by which legislators seek to achieve their goals.

http://mrtrainor.sharepoint.com/Documents/AP%20Gov%20Oversight%20polic%20patrol%20vs%20fire%20alarm%20model.pdf

Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms

Interest group ratings are widely used in studies of legislative behavior. Since the set of votes used is not constant over time and across chambers, the scales underlying the scores can shift and stretch. We introduce an econometric model that corrects the problem. Specifically, we derive an index, much like an inflation index for consumer prices, that allows one to make intertemporal and interchamber comparisons of interest group ratings. The adjusted scores for the ADA show a strong liberal trend in the average member of Congress during 1947–94, followed by a conservative reversal. A nonparametric test using ADA and ACU scores demonstrates the validity of adjusted scores and the invalidity of nominal scores for intertemporal and interchamber comparisons. Using two studies (Levitt 1996; Shipan and Lowry 1997) we illustrate that the choice of adjusted versus nominal scores may greatly affect substantive conclusions of researchers.

Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress

majority party advantage in the allocation of federal resources, a relation? ship seemingly at odds with the bipartisan support often enjoyed by distributive policies and pragrams. We reconcile this disjuncture by developing a partisan blame avoidance account of the distribution of legisla? tive pork. According to this account, the majority party inoculates itself against minority party charges of wasteful spending by including the minority in pork barrel coalitions. At the same time, the majority party, mindful of the electoral benefits of

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3088396.pdf

Partisanship, Blame Avoidance, and the Distribution of Legislative Pork

A number of political commentators and social scientists have speculated about the implications of the election of Barack Obama for race relations. Some of the more optimistic have suggested that the 2008 election demonstrated that Whites' racial attitudes have undergone a fundamental transformation. In this article, I seek to determine whether the putative transformation of Whites' racial attitudes has extended to levels of support for policies designed to alleviate racial inequality, the role of racial prejudice in shaping these policy preferences and whether or not prejudice influenced the presidential vote choice in 2008. Much of the analyses in this article rely upon comparisons between the 1988 election, the last time an African American candidate achieved some success in the Democratic presidential primaries, and the 2008 election utilizing survey data from the American National Election Studies (ANES). In general, I find scant evidence of a decline in the racial divide. Blacks and Whites remain as far apart on racial policy matters in 2008 as in 1988. Second, younger cohorts of Whites are no more racially liberal in 2008 than they were in 1988. Third, the racial divide is only partially mitigated among Obama supporters. Fourth, in analysis of Whites' racial policy preferences in 2008, I find that anti-Black stereotypes and indifference to Black suffering are among the strongest correlates of these opinions. Finally, I find that these same factors also contribute substantially to opposition to Obama in the 2008 election.

Change or More of The Same? Evaluating Racial Attitudes in the Obama Era

Most work on the allocation patterns of campaign contributions by interest groups focuses on the relative productivity of legislators' effort in serving each group. Short time-series and cross-sectional studies of PAC activity have been done for the House of Representatives and the Senate separately, but no study has used (1) longer time series data or (2) made explicit comparisons among interest group (corporations, unions, and trade associations) activities, considering (3) differences in the time series pattern of groups across the two chambers. We integrate all three perspectives here, using data covering the 1980-1986 election cycles. The results represent preliminary estimates of the dollar value to interest groups of the personal and institutional characteristics of legislators, where these characteristics are allowed for the first time to vary across chambers.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2131991.pdf

Wolfgang F. Dexheimer

Papers

Power in the Senate.

Staatliche Verwaltung und Wissenschaft : die wissenschaftliche Beratung der Politik aus der Sicht der Ministerialbürokratie

Soziales System und sozialer Wandel ; Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Bedeutung zweier Begriffe