The Effect of Legislative Incumbency on Policy Innovativeness of U.S. States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7350581 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jia Chen (0000-0002-6350-6610, School of International and Public Affairs Shanghai Jiaotong University Shanghai China), Min Tang (0000-0002-6459-2776), Mu Tang (0000-0001-5102-4983, School of Public Administration and Policy Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Shanghai China), Jinhai Yu (0000-0002-8146-6093, School of Public Policy University of Connecticut Storrs Connecticut USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Policy Studies Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0190-292X • E-ISSN: 1541-0072 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/psj.70072 |
| OpenAlex | W4413878452 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 71 |
Scholars have widely recognized the impacts of the professional experiences of policymakers on policy innovations, but have paid little attention to how such impacts manifest in the composition change of legislative bodies. We hypothesize that electing freshman legislators into a state legislature is associated with higher probabilities of adopting policy innovations due to their stronger motivation to push for innovative policies. Through a panel study of U.S. state legislators from 1967 to 2010, along with a quasi‐experimental design, we examine how the election of incumbent legislators versus freshman legislators affects state‐level policy innovativeness. Our empirical results consistently show that the share of incumbent legislators winning against freshman candidates in state houses is negatively correlated with state policy innovativeness scores. This effect is larger for policies on civil rights and education than for other policy areas. This study adds to the policy innovation literature by estimating the effect of legislators' experiences and shows the negative impact of incumbency on a critical, non‐electoral policy outcome
Legislature · Political science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research
Control Function Methods in Applied Econometrics
The Incumbency Advantage in U.S. Elections
Randomized experiments from non-random selection in U.S. House elections
Innovation and Diffusion Models in Policy Research
Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics
Agendas, alternatives, and public policies
Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism
The Majority-Party Disadvantage
Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the U.S. States
On the incentives to experiment in federations
Better the devil you know? Reelected politicians and policy outcomes under no term limits
Legislative Seniority in the Partisan Congress
The Changing Value of Seniority in the U.S. House
Measuring State Legislative Professionalism
A regression discontinuity design analysis of the incumbency advantage and tenure in the U.S. House
Hot Districts, Cool Legislation
Why Did the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. House Elections Grow
Bottom‐Up Federalism
The Politics of Diffusion
Corruption and the Incumbency Disadvantage
Policy Networks and Innovation Diffusion
Business Owners and Executives as Politicians
The Financial Incumbency Advantage
Mayoral Partisanship and Municipal Fiscal Policy
Does Changing Mayors Matter
The Impact of State Legislative Term Limits on the Supply of Congressional Candidates
State Policy Innovativeness Revisited
The Limited Impact of Term Limits
Do Term Limits Affect Legislative Roll Call Voting? Representation, Polarization, and Participation
Portable Innovation, Policy Wormholes, and Innovation Diffusion
How Much of the Incumbency Advantage is Due to Scare-Off
Instant Credibility
The Consequences of Legislative Term Limits for Policy Diffusion
Descriptive Representation and Innovation in American Legislatures
The Politics of Social Regulatory Policy
Policy Innovation Adoption Across the Diffusion Life Course
Expertise and the Championing of Policy Innovations in State Legislatures
Spid
Who Are Your Neighbors? The Role of Ideology and Decline of Geographic Proximity in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations
Does more matter? Critical mass and legislative influence
Take (Her) to the Limit
The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures
Legislative Productivity in the 93d–105th Congresses
Legislative Effectiveness and Legislative Careers
Gendered diffusion on gendered issues
Management Innovation and Policy Diffusion through Leadership Transfer Networks
Exploring political personalities
Policy Inventing and Borrowing among State Legislatures
On the Validity of the Regression Discontinuity Design for Estimating Electoral Effects
When Mayors Matter
Ideology, Learning, and Policy Diffusion
Bureaucratic Job Mobility and The Diffusion of Innovations
States as Policy Laboratories
Estimating Incumbency Advantage without Bias
Policy Entrepreneurs and the Diffusion of Innovation
The Diffusion of Policy Diffusion Research in Political Science
Do Term Limits Make a Difference
What Might Bring Regular Order Back to the House
Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State
Determinants of Innovation in Organizations
Congressional Voting over Legislative Careers
Seniority-Based Nominations and Political Careers
State Lottery Adoptions as Policy Innovations
Searching for Good Policies
The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |