Legislative Organization

John W. Patty, Constanza F. Schibber, Elizabeth Maggie Penn, and Brian F. Crisp, Congruence, Symmetry, and Committee Structure in Bicameral Legislatures, presented at APSA 2017

Abstract: Extending the work of Gailmard and Hammond (2011), we present a model of committee structure in a bicameral legislature. Our theory allows for asymmetries in terms of legislators’ short-run interest in “appearing active.” It illustrates that this type of impatience has implications for the optimal committee structure in a bicameral system. In equilibrium, the effect of short-run interests are tempered by the latent ideological divergence between the chambers. As a result, the theory provides a richer portrait of the connection between institutions and representation. We derive empirical implications from the model and put them to a test with original data on the committee system of one chamber in a bicameral system. Our results support the logic that the chamber protects itself with an ``extreme’’ committee when it is likely to be on the receiving end of proposals from the other chamber but keeps a committee representative of the floor when it is likely to be originating legislation to be considered by the other chamber.

John W. Patty, Constanza F. Schibber, Elizabeth Maggie Penn, and Brian F. Crisp, Agenda Setting and Party Unity in Bicameral Systems

Abstract: Bicameral legislatures present a challenge to political parties wishing to compile positive records of accomplishment, including attaining policy goals. We present a model of such coordination problems and explore its implications for intra- and inter-chamber party unity.

Constanza F. Schibber and Tiffany D. Barnes, The Impact of Institutional Design on Women’s Committee Appointments, presented at APSA

Abstract: Incumbency disadvantage, seniority rules or even discrimination have been identified as potential causes for female legislators’ relegation to the sidelines. This paper expands this line of work by considering how variations in institutional design affect women’s appointments to powerful committees. In chambers where committees have substantial gatekeeping authority, a position in an influential committee is seen as more valuable to party leaders. As such, we hypothesize that when committees are afforded strong gatekeeping power, female legislators are more likely to be marginalized from prestigious committees than men. Conversely, if committee do not have gatekeeping authority, then female legislators should not be less (or more) likely than men to receive an appointment. We systematically test our conditional hypothesis using a novel data of legislators’ careers and committee appointments in seven Latin American democracies. Importantly, in our analysis, the value of committee appointments varies not only across countries in terms of the committee system design and gatekeeping powers, but also within countries because not all committees are equally likely to impact the policy agenda.

As part of this project we are conducting an expert survey to increase the sample of countries we study and also, better understand the informal practices that rule the appointment process. More information on my Collaborative Projects page.

Institutions, Accountability, and Representation

Variation in the Separation of Power and Legislators’ Preferences over Policy Outcomes

Abstract: In separation of powers systems, in theory, legislative and executive branches must concur for policies to be enacted. However, empirical research, especially on Latin American cases, suggests that rather than reaching a compromise, it is common for the executive to make the decisions while the legislature remains marginalized from the policymaking process. To the contrary, I argue that the formal powers ascribed to the president and the assembly, in interaction with their ideological divergence, can be used to understand important policy choices, including the allocation of government expenditures. I explore the success of the legislative majority at determining spending priorities. Looking at 12 Latin American democracies for the past 20 years, I find that when the median member and the president ideologically diverge, the spending priorities of the majority are likely to be reflected in budget outcomes, but only if the institutions that govern the budget-making process empower legislators.

Variation in Separation of Powers and Executive and Legislative Accountability

Abstract: In separation of powers systems, the success of the president and the legislature in shaping policy varies with the balance of institutional power ascribed to each branch of government. In this paper, I study the extent to which these institutional factors impact individual citizens’ evaluation of the work carried out by each branch of government. I reason that individual citizens will evaluate a branch of government controlled by ideologically distant elected officials in a particularly negative way when it possesses the institutional powers necessary to change policy in its preferred direction. Leveraging variation in institutional designs in 11 Latin American democracies and relying on 17 AmericasBarometer surveys, I find that institutional designs affect individual citizens’ perceptions of the work conducted by the president and the legislature, which should affect how they punish or reward elected officials for their actions.

Elite-Mass Congruence. Solving Methodological Challenges.

Constanza F. Schibber, A Common Left-Right Space for Citizens and Legislators in Latin America, presented at APSA

Much of the current literature on political representation pays particular attention to explaining the level of congruence between the preferences of citizens and the preferences and actions of elected officials. This line of inquiry, however, has suffered from methodological limitations because a strong test of any theory requires measures of the policy positions of citizens and politicians on the same scale. To solve this methodological gap, this paper presents a Bayesian model that jointly estimates the location of citizens and legislators on the left-right scale in Latin America. More specifically, I estimate the ideal points of legislators and citizens on a common left-right scale by relying on two set of surveys that tap into citizens’ (Latinobarometer & LAPOP) and legislators’ (Salamanca University) policy preferences, along with a set of identical questions across the two surveys that allow to scale the estimates within countries. I also estimate the location of legislators’ revealed behavior (or actions) by including their voting record on economic policies, along with a set of identical legislators that answered the elite survey and voted on roll-calls.