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Diffusion in Congress: Measuring the Social Dynamics of Legislative Behavior*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

René Lindstädt ,
Ryan J. Vander Wielen  and
Matthew Green
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Abstract

While there is a substantial literature highlighting the presence of social dynamics in legislatures, we know very little about the precise processes that generate these social dynamics. Yet, whether social dynamics are due to peer pressure, frequency of interaction, or genuine learning, for example, has important implications for questions of political representation and accountability. We demonstrate how a recent innovation can be used to study the diffusion of behavior within legislatures. In particular, we study diffusion within the US House of Representatives by looking at the dynamic process underlying discharge petitions. The discharge procedure shares many characteristics with other forms of legislative behavior, yet it has one important advantage when it comes to studying social dynamics: we can observe when members decide to sign petitions. Based on data from 1995 to 2014, we find that the social dynamics underlying the discharge procedure tend to involve the rational evaluation of information conveyed by the behavior of previous petition signatories.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 511 - 527
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2016 

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Footnotes

*

René Lindstädt is the Head of the School of Law and Politics, Professor of Law, and Professor of Politics at Cardiff University, Law Building, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales ([email protected]). Ryan J. Vander Wielen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and (by courtesy) the Department of Economics, Temple University, 457 Gladfelter Hall, 1115 West Berks Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA ([email protected]). Matthew Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Catholic University of America, 315 Marist Hall, 620 Michigan Avenue, Washington, DC 20064, USA ([email protected]). To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2016.42

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Supplementary material: Link

Lindstädt et al. Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CJZB8X
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Supplementary material: PDF

Lindstädt supplementary material

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