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Delay is a common feature of appropriations politics. Although members of Congress and the president often decry lengthy delays in the passage of appropriations bills, we investigate whether such delays might confer strategic advantages, and if so, to whom. We draw from bargaining theory to understand how the relationship between the duration of negotiations and outcomes depends on the underlying distribution of bargaining power and the nature of the bargaining process. In our empirical analysis, we find that delay is associated with greater concessions to the president, but not with more extreme outcomes. We also find that the House and Senate concede more to presidents who prefer less spending, while the Senate is more responsive to presidential needs during presidential election years. These results suggest that the president's power comes from the asymmetry of veto and proposal rights, rather than from symmetric bargaining with proposals and counterproposals or a "war of nerves.". © 2014 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

An analysis of U.S. budgetary changes shows that, among subaccounts that are cut, Democrats make more large cuts when they control more lawmaking institutions. This surprising finding is consistent with legislators who are subject to motivated reasoning. In an information-rich world, they disproportionately respond to information in line with their bias unless they must make a large accuracy correction. This article tests, for the first time, motivated information processing among legislators. It finds evidence that Democrats engage in motivated information processing and that the effects of it are felt more on social spending and in off-election years.

Delay is a common feature of appropriations politics. Although members of Congress and the president often decry lengthy delays in the passage of appropriations bills, we investigate whether such delays might confer strategic advantages, and if so, to whom. We draw from bargaining theory to understand how the relationship between the duration of negotiations and outcomes depends on the underlying distribution of bargaining power and the nature of the bargaining process. In our empirical analysis, we find that delay is associated with greater concessions to the president, but not with more extreme outcomes. We also find that the House and Senate concede more to presidents who prefer less spending, while the Senate is more responsive to presidential needs during presidential election years. These results suggest that the president's power comes from the asymmetry of veto and proposal rights, rather than from symmetric bargaining with proposals and counterproposals or a "war of nerves.". © 2014 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

© The Author(s) 2013. An analysis of U.S. budgetary changes shows that, among subaccounts that are cut, Democrats make more large cuts when they control more lawmaking institutions. This surprising finding is consistent with legislators who are subject to motivated reasoning. In an information-rich world, they disproportionately respond to information in line with their bias unless they must make a large accuracy correction. This article tests, for the first time, motivated information processing among legislators. It finds evidence that Democrats engage in motivated information processing and that the effects of it are felt more on social spending and in off-election years.

Central governments face compliance problems when they rely on local governments to implement policy. In authoritarian political systems, these challenges are pronounced because local governments do not face citizens at the polls. In a national-scale, randomized field experiment in China, we test whether a public, non-governmental rating of municipal governments' compliance with central mandates to disclose information about the management of pollution increased compliance. We find significant and positive treatment effects on compliance after only one year that persist with reinforcement into a second post-treatment year. The public rating appears to decrease the costs of monitoring compliance for the central government without increasing public and media attention to pollution, highlighting when this mode of governance is likely to emerge. These results reveal important roles that nonstate actors can play in enhancing the accountability of local governments in authoritarian politicalsystems.

Environmental regulations frequently mandate the use of "best available" science, but ensuring that it is used in decisions around the use and protection of natural resources is often challenging. In the Western US, this relationship between science and management is at the forefront of post-fire land management decisions. Recent fires, post-fire threats (e.g. flooding, erosion), and the role of fire in ecosystem health combine to make post-fire management highly visible and often controversial. This paper uses post-fire management to present a framework for understanding why disconnects between science and management decisions may occur. We argue that attributes of agencies, such as their political or financial incentives, can limit how effectively science is incorporated into decision-making. At the other end of the spectrum, the lack of synthesis or limited data in science can result in disconnects between science-based analysis of post-fire effects and agency policy and decisions. Disconnects also occur because of the interaction between the attributes of agencies and the attributes of science, such as their different spatial and temporal scales of interest. After offering examples of these disconnects in post-fire treatment, the paper concludes with recommendations to reduce disconnects by improving monitoring, increasing synthesis of scientific findings, and directing social-science research toward identifying and deepening understanding of these disconnects. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.