Representing you
Failure at the top: How power undermines collaborative performance
John Angus Hildreth & Cameron Anderson
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, February 2016, Pages 261-286
Abstract:
All too commonly, we see groups of leaders fail to accomplish their stated goals when working together - legislators who cannot agree on a bill, heads of state who cannot draft meaningful environmental policy, or boards of trustees who make disastrous decisions for their school. The current research examines whether groups of leaders fail as often as they do in part because of the power each leader is accustomed to possessing among his or her constituents. In multiple studies we found that high power individuals, when working together in groups, performed worse than did other groups: individuals randomly assigned power in an initial task were less creative when they then worked together in groups on a subsequent task (Studies 1A and 4). Individuals with higher power who worked together in groups were also less likely to reach agreement on a difficult negotiation task, whether these groups comprised actual executives from an extant organization (Study 2) or participants randomly assigned power in the laboratory (Study 3). Mediation analyses suggest that groups of high power individuals performed worse because they fought over their relative status in the group, were less focused on the task, and shared information with each other less effectively. However, high power individuals were more effective when working on tasks that required less coordination: they were more creative (Studies 1B and 4) and persisted longer on a difficult task than other groups. Therefore, group processes are the key problem for groups of high power individuals when they work together.
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Virtues, Vices, and Political Influence in the U.S. Senate
Leanne ten Brinke et al.
Psychological Science, January 2016, Pages 85-93
Abstract:
What qualities make a political leader more influential or less influential? Philosophers, political scientists, and psychologists have puzzled over this question, positing two opposing routes to political power - one driven by human virtues, such as courage and wisdom, and the other driven by vices, such as Machiavellianism and psychopathy. By coding nonverbal behaviors displayed in political speeches, we assessed the virtues and vices of 151 U.S. senators. We found that virtuous senators became more influential after they assumed leadership roles, whereas senators who displayed behaviors consistent with vices - particularly psychopathy - became no more influential or even less influential after they assumed leadership roles. Our results inform a long-standing debate about the role of morality and ethics in leadership and have important implications for electing effective government officials. Citizens would be wise to consider a candidate's virtue in casting their votes, which might increase the likelihood that elected officials will have genuine concern for their constituents and simultaneously promote cooperation and progress in government.
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The political economy of the Essential Air Service program
Joshua Hall, Amanda Ross & Christopher Yencha
Public Choice, October 2015, Pages 147-164
Abstract:
We find that congressional influences affect the amount of airport subsidies that a congressional district receives through the Essential Air Service (EAS) program. The EAS program was passed with the goal of helping to continue commercial air service to rural communities following deregulation in the 1970s. Using data from 1998-2014, we find strong and consistent evidence that subsidies are higher in districts having congressional representation on the House Transportation and Ways and Means Committees. Our empirical results, when combined with news reports of members claiming credit for securing EAS funding, are consistent with the EAS serving private and public interests.
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Thomas Stratmann & J.W. Verret
Journal of Law and Economics, August 2015, Pages 545-559
Abstract:
The US Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission significantly altered the regulatory landscape for corporate political activity by permitting unlimited corporate expenditures by independent politically active groups. This paper uses that event to determine the impact of corporate political activity on the stock prices of those firms that are most likely to utilize these new opportunities for political engagement. Our findings show that corporate political activity enhances shareholder wealth, particularly in firms that are small to medium sized, firms that spend relatively less on lobbying, and firms operating in more heavily regulated industries.
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Hierarchical Accountability in Government
Razvan Vlaicu & Alexander Whalley
Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies a setting where a relatively uninformed voter holds a policymaker accountable through an informed intermediary. In equilibrium the voter uses the intermediary to insulate the policymaker from pandering incentives when the voter's policy expertise is low or the policymaker's congruence is high. The voter can thus enjoy the benefits of bureaucratic expertise without forfeiting electoral responsiveness. We examine the model's predictions using U.S. city-level data, and find that hierarchically-accountable managers reduce popular city employment, and adjust it more flexibly, than electorally-accountable mayors. The estimated incentive effects are smaller in cities with high voter expertise and larger during election years, and are robust to instrumentation by precipitation shocks that influenced early 20th century manager government adoptions for reasons obsolete today.
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Firm-level political capabilities and subsequent financial performance
Richard Brown
Journal of Public Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
While there is a robust literature on corporate political activity, scholars have not adequately framed these activities as being part of a strategy to garner political capabilities. In this paper, we incorporate political capabilities and argue that those firms that more intensely commit resources to political activities have associated subsequent performance benefits. In a sample of 87 Fortune 500 firms from 2005 to 2011, we find that both political action committee and lobbying intensity were associated with higher return on invested capital and return on assets after controlling for other factors. Additionally, we find support that the cumulative effect of political action committee and lobbying intensity on performance is also significant. Finally, we moderate the main effects with industry concentration and find that returns are greater in more consolidated industries.
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Public Support for Sale: Government Spending and Public Approval of Federal Agency Performance
Susan Miller
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Federal agencies award thousands of grants and contracts each year. Although we have considerable insight into the implications of these expenditures for politicians, we know little about their consequences for agencies. I develop a theory that links agency spending in citizens' states to their support of agency performance, with the expectation that this relationship is conditioned by citizen-agency ideological congruence. I contend that agency spending serves as an information shortcut for citizens when evaluating agencies because it is often visible in a way that other agency activities, such as regulatory decisions, are not. When a citizen fundamentally supports the policies and projects an agency is funding, the positive effect of spending may be enhanced. I find support for these expectations. This article contributes to our understanding of the ways in which expenditures shape opinion toward agencies, which is important given the significance of public sentiment for an agency's political survival.
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I the People? Self-Interest and Demand for Government Responsiveness
Jan Rosset, Nathalie Giger & Julian Bernauer
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Whether elected representatives should be responsive to the wishes of the majority of citizens has been an issue often discussed from a normative perspective. This article shifts the focus by looking at the determinants of support for responsiveness among citizens. Its core argument is that attitudes toward responsiveness vary systematically depending on the policy gains an individual can expect from a government that is responsive to the preferences of the majority of citizens. The analysis of data from the European Social Survey and 21 countries confirms these expectations. Individuals whose ideological stances are reflected well by the incumbent government are less favorable to the idea that governments should be responsive to the preferences of the majority, while one's proximity to the ideological location of the median citizen increases the odds of support for majority responsiveness. Our findings are stable across a large variety of European democracies.
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Character Endorsements and Electoral Competition
Archishman Chakraborty & Parikshit Ghosh
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, forthcoming
Abstract:
When an elite-controlled media strategically endorses candidates in order to promote its own ideological agenda, office-seeking parties may completely pander to the media, under moderate ideological conflict between voters and the elite. Larger ideological conflict leads to polarization - parties either become media darlings or run populist campaigns. The welfare effects are: (a) delegation by the media owner to a more moderate editor is Pareto improving, (b) the median voter is never better off delegating voting rights to the informed elite, (c) a majority of voters may be better off if the informed media did not exist.
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Legislative Responsiveness to Constituency Change
Kristina Miler
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across democracies, elected officials are expected to represent their constituents, but how do legislators react to changes in their constituency? This core question of legislative responsiveness is examined in the context of the bicameral U.S. Congress where more than 100 legislators have served in both chambers since 1960. These chamber-changers provide a unique vantage point for examining constituency representation, including competing expectations based on the electoral connection and the ideological stability of legislative voting. Based on analyses of original data, I find overwhelming evidence of legislative responsiveness to both constituency change and constituency stability. Moreover, when legislators' constituencies change, they respond by changing their behavior in ways that reflect both the direction and magnitude of constituency change.