The Evolution of Legislative Jurisdictions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6388161 |
|---|---|
| Authors | F R Baumgartner (0000-0003-4193-4152, Pennsylvania State University), Bryan D Jones (University of Washington), Michael Macleod (0000-0003-2444-6886, Compass Technology Group (United States)), Michael C Macleod |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 321-349 |
| Publication date | 2000-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3816 • E-ISSN: 1468-2508 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1111/0022-3816.00015 |
| OpenAlex | W2128446039 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 76 |
| References cited | 43 |
We consider the clarity of the jurisdictions of the committees of the U.S. Congress over the entire post-war period. We offer a theory to explain changes in clarity over time, emphasizing how the rise of new issues and the redefinition of existing ones undermine the clarity and stability of committee jurisdictions. We present results from a new dataset on all congressional hearings between 1947 and 1994-67,291 cases in all. Using new summary indices of jurisdictional clarity, we trace the evolution of the jurisdictional system for both the House and Senate. We demonstrate low levels of clarity for most issues and a decline in clarity for the system as a whole over time. Further, we show that these developments are the result of changes in issue-density (the rise of new issues and the redefinition of old ones) and increases in institutional resources, in particular professional committee staff. We note the implications of these findings for models of legislative behavior and government decision-making more generally
CLARITY · Government (linguistics · Legislature · Political science · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration
The American Congress
Congress and the Politics of Problem Solving
Institutional Choice and Global Commerce
Issue Politics in Congress
Punctuated Equilibrium Theory
Social Choice and Legitimacy
The Reshaping of West European Party Politics
Cultural Constraints on Regulation
Community Disaster Recovery
Muddle and Match
Incorporation is Not Enough
The policy agendas project
Winning Coalition Formation in the U.S. Senate
Political Limits to the Processing of Policy Problems
Congressional Attention and Opportunity Structures
Gendered Agenda-Building
Pinning down an octopus
The Paradox of Ambition
Theory and Inference in the Study of Bureaucracy
Australian Public Policy
Committee jurisdiction, congressional behavior and policy outcomes
Evaluating the Breadth of Policy Engagement by Organized Interests
The Invisible Farmworker
Implementation Punctuation
Agendas and instability in American local politics
Institutional issue proclivity in the EU
The decline of incrementalism in U.S. lawmaking
Intended Consequences
Indonesia's Courts of Industrial Relations
Issues and Institutions
Contested procedures
Venue Shopping and the Politics of Urban Development
The Popular Origins of Legislative Jurisdictions
Policing the Administrative State
Information provision as agenda setting
Emerging technologies and problem definition uncertainty
Negotiating climate legislation
Slant, Extremity, and Diversity
Span of Control and Public Organizations
A Neopluralist Perspective on Research on Organized Interests
Drawing Lobbyists to Washington
Putting on the Brakes or Pressing on the Gas? Media Attention and the Speed of Policymaking
Subsystems and ill‐fitting problems
Big & rich
Up in Smoke
Representation and Agenda Setting
Information Processing and Policy Dynamics
More than agents
Is There Life After Policy Streams, Advocacy Coalitions, and Punctuations
Widespread Policy Disruption and Interest Mobilization
The Importance of Attention Diversity and How to Measure It
The Dynamics of Incrementalism
Widespread Policy Disruption
Reconceptualizing the Policy Subsystem
Majority Party Change and Committee Jurisdictions in State Legislatures
Physicians in congress
Balancing Power
Partisan brand name building and deficit politics
The Comparative Policy Agendas Project
Institutional Effects of Changes in Political Attention
Booster seats
Problem detection in legislative oversight
Effects of the Core Functions of Government on the Diversity of Executive Agendas
Policy Agendas in Australian Politics
Incremental Consolidation and Comprehensive Reorganization of American State Executive Branches
Policy Preference Formation in Legislative Politics
Structure and Opportunity
Influencing the Bureaucracy
Public Policy Investment
Punctuations and Turning Points in British Politics
Information Infrastructures for Black-Interest Advocacy in Congress
When Will New Programs be Mandatory? Determinants of the Decision Between the Mandatory and Discretionary Budget Designs
Committee Parallelism and Bicameral Agenda Coordination
Niche players in health policy
Policy Punctuations in Colorado Water Law
What Is Known about Punctuated Equilibrium Theory? And What Does That Tell Us about the Construction, Validation, and Replication of Knowledge in the Policy Sciences
Gaining access
The giant jigsaw puzzle
Congressional Realignment, 1925-1978
Positive Theories of Congressional Institutions
Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House
Committees in Congress
Competing Principals
Information and Legislative Organization
The Population Ecology of Interest Representation
The Origins of Order
Turf Wars
Who Makes the Laws? Creativity and Power in Senate Committees
Congress, The Electoral Connection
Congress
Agenda Change and Committee Politics in the Postreform House
One Bill, Many Committees
U. S. Congressman as Enterprise
The Effect of Energy Politics on Congressional and Executive Organization in the 1970s
The Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives
Unorthodox lawmaking
Advocacy versus Certainty
House Special Rules and the Institutional Design Controversy
Comparing Committee and Floor Preferences
Bill Introduction in the Nineteenth Century
The Role of Legislators in the Determination of Interest Group Influence
Congressional Committees as Moving Targets
The Institutionalization of the American Presidency, 1924-92
Nonlegislative Hearings and Policy Change in Congress
Demand-Side Theory and Congressional Committee Composition
Individual Incentives and Institutional Imperatives
Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models
Policy Content, Committee Membership, and Behavior
The Committee Assignment Process and the Conditional Nature of Committee Bias
Are Congressional Committees Composed of Preference Outliers
The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power
The Nature of Congressional Committee Jurisdictions
The Destruction of Issue Monopolies in Congress
Representation in Congress
Policy Making in Congressional Committees
| Unique citing works | 76 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,04 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2026 (26) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 76 |