Suchergebnisse

Although Congress passes spending bills every year, there is great variation in the amount of time it takes. Drawing from rational models of bargaining, we identify factors that systematically affect the duration of legislative bargaining in the appropriations process. Analysis of spending bills for fiscal years 1977 to 2009 shows that delays are shorter when the ideological distance between pairs of key players decreases and distributive content is higher, but they are longer following an election. We find that congressional parties matter but that intraparty conflict matters as well, which suggests that Appropriations Committees retain significant autonomy in Congress.

U.S. federal budget dynamics, as a major attribute of the legislative and bureaucratic decision‐making processes, increasingly calls into question the scholarly focus on incrementalism. What constitutes a "small" change is largely unspecified in previous research that has also been unable to assess incrementalism across multiple levels of aggregation. Using a unique budgetary database, this article analyzes whether budgetary changes are in fact "small" at different levels of aggregation. Surprisingly, a low proportion of changes are small by any logical standard. During most years, more than one‐fifth of budgetary changes are greater than 50 percent, and nearly half are more than 10 percent. The level of aggregation is also important for assessing whether political variables influence incrementalism. A salient finding: change in party control reflects greater influence within micro‐level budget decisions, while divided government manifests more impact on aggregate‐level budget decisions.

This paper replicates and extends Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder, "Comparing Interest Group Scores Across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress," which appeared in the American Political Science Review (1999/93:33–50). We replicate the most recent unpublished extension by Dr. Groseclose and research assistants for years 1947–1999, and then we extend the analysis to include years 2000 through 2007. We make available inflation-adjusted ADA scores from 1947 through 2007, allowing scholars to incorporate the most recent interest group scores into their analyses.

This paper documents the present system of custodial remands for children under sixteen years in Ireland. The research includes the entire population of children remanded into custody during the summer of 2000 (N=117). A flow chart model illustrates these young people's experiences, and the paper highlights issues such as the number of non-offending children who are in custody (21%); the cycle of repeated remands and court appearances (up to 22 repeats); excessive periods of time spent in secure detention (up to 351 days); and the use of remand facilities for those awaiting a suitable residential placement (57%). It provides an important baseline from which to assess the impact of legislative reform in this area

Examines the case against Chilean General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte filed by the Association of Progressive Spanish Prosecutors, based on complicity in a series of assassinations carried out in foreign countries, 1973-90.