Hearings on the Hill

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-1-009-53407-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 200 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 355 g

Reihe: Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions

Good public policy in a democracy relies on efficient and accurate information flows between individuals with firsthand, substantive expertise and elected legislators. While legislators are tasked with the job of making and passing policy, they are politicians and not substantive experts. To make well-informed policy, they must rely on the expertise of others. Hearings on the Hill argues that partisanship and close competition for control of government shape the information that legislators collect, providing opportunities for party leaders and interest groups to control information flows and influence policy. It reveals how legislators strategically use committees, a central institution of Congress, and their hearings for information acquisition and dissemination, ultimately impacting policy development in American democracy. Marshaling extensive new data on hearings and witnesses from 1960 to 2018, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of how partisan incentives determine how and from whom members of Congress seek information.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ban, Pamela

Park, Ju Yeon

You, Hye Young

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Members of Congress are politicians, not experts; 2. Committee hearings and information provision in Congress; 3. Who testifies in Congress? New data on congressional hearings and witnesses; 4. Not all information is equal: how witnesses vary in what they provide to Congress; 5. When committees seek out information for policy development; 6. How control of government shapes information exchange; 7. Congressional capacity and the search for specialized information; 8. Conclusion: a partisanly informed Congress; Appendix.

Über Autor(innen)

Park, Ju Yeon
Ju Yeon Park is an assistant professor of political science at the Ohio State University. Her research examines legislators' competing incentives and how they shape their legislative activities and public speeches. Her research on congressional hearings won the Congressional Quarterly Press Award and received media attention from Bloomberg, FiveThirtyEight, Roll Call, and the Washington Post.

You, Hye Young
Hye Young You is an associate professor of the Department of Politics and the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Her research focuses on how interest groups influence democratic representation in the US. She has been recognized by five discipline-wide Best Paper awards from the American Political Science Association.

Ban, Pamela
Pamela Ban is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on legislative politics, interest groups, information in policymaking, and the interbranch relationship between Congress and the bureaucracy. Her research has received the Congressional Quarterly Press Award and has been used by policymakers at the state and federal levels.