Uncovering the Party Effect in the US Congress

Year 2018, Volume: 11 Issue: 22, 291 - 304, 10.06.2018

Alper Tolga Bulut

https://doi.org/10.19060/gav.437821

Abstract

Although there has been a voluminous literature on American foreign policy and its effect on several

regions, research on American domestic politics has been relatively scarce. Due to its significant impact

on foreign policy formation, the Presidency received a lot of scholarly attention. This paper, on the other

hand, focuses on another important actor in American foreign and domestic policy: The United States

Congress. In this respect, we specifically aim to contribute to the literature on American Congress which

aims to uncover the party effect on legislative behavior. Current studies on the topic usually rely on rollcall

votes. Although this method has been quite popular, recent studies indicate problems in terms of

measuring the true effect of the party. Hence, this study proposes an alternative method which has been

widely used in the European Politics literature. The proposed methods involves using expert surveys to

determine the level of party effect.

Keywords

congress, party effect, us

References

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