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Representation and Institutional Design

Autor Rebekah L. Herrick
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 31 mar 2011
An enduring question for most nations has been how to best represent their citizens and their needs. This is a complex issue as there is no universally accepted definition of good representation. Representation and Institutional Design addresses the issues of institutions and representation by examining how variation in institutional design can affect many aspects of how legislators represent their constituents. It does so by examining the relationships between legislative design (electoral laws, term limits, professionalism, and district size and magnitude) and many aspects of representation (symbolic, service, and policy representation, as well as legislators' incentives to represent). A key finding is that each aspect of professionalism has a unique set of effects on representation. Legislators with staff have closer relationship with their constituents than others. Legislators with other legislative resources engage in more symbolic and service representation but not policy representation. And legislators in institutions with greater capacity were similar to others in their representative style. Findings also indicate that term limits weaken relationships between legislators and constituents and electoral laws, and district size and magnitude have some but limited effects. This is an important study not only because of the importance of representation but also because of the dearth of research on how institutional design affects representation in state legislatures.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780739150672
ISBN-10: 0739150677
Pagini: 173
Dimensiuni: 163 x 240 x 18 mm
Greutate: 0.44 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Lexington Books
Locul publicării:New York, United States

Cuprins

1 Preface
2 Chapter 1: Institutions and Representation
3 Chapter 2: Institutional Effects on the Incumbency Advantage
4 Chapter 3: Institutional Design and Ambition
5 Chapter 4: Institutional Design and Role Orientation
6 Chapter 6: Institutional Designs Effect on Legislators Information and Perceptual Accuracy
7 Chapter 7: Institutional Design Substantive Representation
8 Chapter 8: Conclusion
9 Appendix A: State Legislators and Their Districts
10 Appendix B: Descriptive Statistics of Variables
11 References

Recenzii

In the tradition of Malcolm Jewell and Alan Rosenthal, Rebekah Herrick investigates the complexities of representation at the state legislative level. This is an innovative effort to untangle the effects of various institutional and electoral arrangements on legislative behavior. It is an ambitious study.
Dr. Herrick's book is an important contribution to the discipline's understanding of how representation by state legislators, in its various forms, is influenced by state legislative institutions. We know that the rules and structures of an institution have an impact on individual behavior. Dr. Herrick's study is an excellent empirical test of how the rules and structures actually influence the representative style of legislators.
This book's focus is solely on US state legislatures. Herrick (Oklahoma State Univ.) begins with a nuanced discussion of how professionalism, election laws, term limits, and district features may affect symbolic representation, service to constituents, and promotion of particular policies. Political ambition may be affected by institutional design and, therefore, may have both direct and indirect impacts on representational style. Models are then tested through a survey of state legislators in 26 states. The survey questionnaire is helpfully included as an appendix. Unfortunately, basic overviews of institutional design features and summaries for each state or groupings of similar states are not included. Instead, the bulk of the book consists of variable descriptions and regression analysis discussion. The robustness of the regression findings are difficult to evaluate because each model includes over 30 independent variables with individual, district, and state-level characteristics. Potentially intriguing findings about legislators' perceptual accuracy and differences in the use of communication tools are somewhat buried within the analysis. The author concludes each results chapter with recommendations on ways to improve democratic representation, which should be viewed as starting points for further research.