the social and political utility of congressional caucus networks
DESCRIPTION
The Social and Political Utility of Congressional Caucus Networks. Jennifer Nicoll Victor University of Pittsburgh From a book manuscript, Bridging the Information Gap: The Social and Political Power of Legislative Member Organizations - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The Social and Political Utility of Congressional Caucus Networks
Jennifer Nicoll VictorUniversity of Pittsburgh
From a book manuscript, Bridging the Information Gap: The Social and Political Power of Legislative Member Organizations By Nils Ringe and Jennifer N. Victor, with Christopher Carman
APSA 2011Seattle, Washington
ArgumentDo parties and committees
satisfy legislators informational needs?◦No. Legislators have an insatiable
need for information.◦Parties and Committees are
institutionally constrained.Legislative caucuses fill this void.
◦Caucuses provide weak-tie relationships and high utility information, at little cost.
Theoretical PerspectiveLegislators need information.
Sources:◦Committees, parties, CRS, CBO,
lobbyists.
Parties and committees are constrained:◦Membership is obligatory (parties &
comtes)◦Homogenous ideology (parties)◦Narrow issue space (committees)
Caucuses are voluntary and unrestricted.
How Do Caucuses Connect and Benefit Legislators?Caucuses provide a network of
weak ties between MCs.
Caucuses facilitate the flow of high utility information between legislative enterprises.
Caucuses Build (Weak) RelationshipsWeak ties (Granovetter 1973)
◦Bridge structural holes (Feld 1981; Burt 2000)
◦Inexpensive to create and maintain
A voluntary institution that creates weak, inexpensive relationships and information in Congress is highly valuable to MCs.
ExpectationsCaucuses help (weak)
relationships develop.Caucuses are inexpensive to
create and maintain.Caucuses provide valuable
information to its members.Caucuses make it likely for
legislative “brokers” to arise.
What we already know about CaucusesCaucuses are sources of information
(Fiellin 1962; Stevens, et al. 1974, 1981; Hammond 1998; Hammon, et al. 1985)
Caucuses help coordinate legislative activity (Loomis 1981; Hammond, et al 1983; Miller 1990; Vega 1993; Ainsworth and Akins 1997; Victor and Ringe 2009).
Caucuses develop relationships with outside groups (Ainsworth and Akins 1997; McCormick and Mitchell 2007).
DataCaucus memberships (109th-111th
Congresses, 2005-2010)◦Source: Congressional Yellowbook
Usual suspects:◦NOMINATE, state, cd, committee
assignments, gender, terms served, electoral percentage, leadership, ethniticy
◦Legislative productivty44 Interviews (May 2009 -
June2010)
Descriptive Data: who joins?
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Pred
icte
d N
umbe
r of C
aucu
ses J
oine
d
Predicted Number of Caucuses Joined, 109th-111th(other variables held at means)
Repu
blica
nsDe
moc
rats
Part
y/Co
mte
. Lea
ders
Non
-Lea
ders
Won
Elec
tion
by 4
9%
Serv
ed 1
Term
Fem
ale
Mal
e
Won
Elec
tion
by 5
4%W
onEl
ectio
n by
59%
Won
Elec
tion
by 6
6%W
onEl
ectio
n by
73%
Serv
ed 3
Term
sSe
rved
5 Te
rms
Serv
ed 8
Term
sSe
rved
12 Te
rms
Min
ority
Cauc
asia
n
Won
Elec
tion
by 8
9%W
onEl
ectio
n by
100
%
110t
h Co
ngre
ss11
1th
Cong
ress
Member-by-Member Caucus Networks
Congress Members of Congress
Average number of caucuses joined
Density of Network
109 433 8.6 0.36110 437 19.3 0.77111 433 25.2 0.75
Caucus-by-Caucus Networks
Congress Number of Caucuses
Average number of Members per caucus
Density of Network
109 303 12 0.29110 379 22 0.42111 419 26 0.49
Caucuses 1994-2010
18
9 9 10
14 13 12
22
26
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
050
100150200250300350400450
103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111
Aver
age
Cauc
us Si
ze
Num
ber o
f Cau
cuse
s
Congress
Congressional Caucus Trends103rd-111th (1994-2010)
Caucuses with members from 1993-2010Albanian Issues Caucus Congressional Coalition on
Population and DevelopmentCongressional Task Force on Tobacco and Health
Biomedical Research Caucus Congressional Competitiveness Caucus
Congressional Urban Caucus
Congressional Arts Caucus Congressional Fire Services Caucus
Conservative Opportunity Society
Congressional Automotive Caucus
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Friends of Ireland
Congressional Black Caucus Congressional Human Rights Caucus
House Military Depot and Industrial Facilities Caucus
Congressional Boating Caucus Congressional Long Island Sound Caucus
Long Island Congressional Caucus
Congressional Border Caucus Congressional Mining Caucus Northeast Agriculture Caucus
Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues
Congressional Progressive Caucus
Older Americans Caucus
Congressional Caucus on Ethiopian Jewry
Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus
Rural Health Care Coalition
Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans
Congressional Steel Caucus Tennessee Valley Authority Caucus
Congressional Coalition on Adoption
Congressional Task Force on International HIV/AIDS
Largest Caucuses, 111th Congress
Name Number of Members
Congressional Fire Services Caucus 203
Congressional Diabetes Caucus 195
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus 180
National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus, The 169
Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus 166
Bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease 156
Congressional Historic Preservation Caucus 150
Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans 144
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission 141
Congressional Arts Caucus 136
TESTING EXPECTATIONS
The caucus network will be “tighter” than the committee network.
Caucuses vs. Committees, 111th Congress
Caucus Network Committee Network
LEGENDDemocrats
Republicans(Node size indicates seniority)
Density = 0.75 Density = 0.21
Caucuses vs. Committees
Caucuses Committees
Cong. Den.Avg. Geo. Distance
Compactness
% reached in one step
% reached in two steps
109th 0.36 1.56 0.58 0.44 0.99
110th 0.77 1.18 0.85 0.83 1.00
111th 0.75 1.23 0.87 0.77 0.99
Cong. Den. Avg. Geo. Distance
Compactness
% reached in one step
% reached in two steps
109th 0.21 1.97 0.58 0.21 0.82
110th 0.22 1.8 0.59 0.23 0.94
111th 0.21 1.9 0.58 0.21 0.91
TESTING EXPECTATIONS
Caucuses create weak and bridging ties.
Weak & Bridging TiesCaucus meetings and events are irregular
(interview data); committees meet often.Burt’s “constraint” (1992). Expect:
◦ the constraint scores of caucus members will be statistically significantly lower than for legislators who are not members of any caucus.
◦Compare the constraint scores of caucus members to what their constraint scores would be if they were not members of any caucus; again, the expectation is that caucus membership decreases individual legislators’ constraint scores.
Bridging Ties EvidenceCount all “institutional ties” between
every pair in our sample for all Congresses in which they served (going back to 89th Congress 1965).
Only 5 MCs who join no caucuses, therefore no statistical difference in the constraint score between these 5 and all others.
Caucus members do have lower constraint scores than they would if they were not in any caucuses (p=0.01).
TESTING EXPECTATIONS
Caucuses provide opportunity for “brokerage.”
ERGM AnalysisExponential Random Graph Models
◦Explicitly model interdependence in the networks.
◦1-mode projection of data, NxN affiliation matrices of caucus membership, and committee membership; dichotomized.
◦Expect a term for “betweenness centrality” to be positive and significant and greater in the caucus network than the committee network.
◦Controls: party, state, gender, leadership, NOMINATE, Black, seniority, electoral %.
Testable Implications: Legislative ProductivityIf our network theory of caucuses
is correct, we should observe a positive relationship between a legislator’s structural position in the caucus network and her legislative productivity.
Data: # bills sponsored, # sponsored that pass House, # sponsored that become law.
ConclusionsCaucus play an important, but
indirect, role in lawmaking.Caucuses provide a venue for
building relationships and passing along information.
These voluntary institutions solve an information-based collective action problem that committees and parties cannot.
ConclusionsCaucuses are cheap, and
therefore flexible. Not constrained by institutional rules.
Caucus ties are cross-cutting and allow for social bridges between legislators.
[Not shown here] caucuses help connect legislator to outsiders who feed the groups with highly useful information.