Bringing the minority back to the party: An informational theory of majority and minority parties in Congress
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629813518127 |
| Published date | 01 January 2015 |
| Author | Adam Ramey |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Bringing the minority back to
the party: An informational
theory of majority and
minority parties in Congress
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2015, Vol. 27(1) 132–150
©The Author(s) 2014
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DOI:10.1177/0951629813518127
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Adam Ramey
Department of Political Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE
Abstract
Scholars of Congress and other legislative institutions have posited that majority agenda-setting
is one of the primary mechanisms by which a majority party demonstrates its power over legis-
lation. However, this line of work has difficulty explaining why the floor median would delegate
such power to the majority. In this paper, I develop a theory of lawmaking in an incomplete-
information environment. The model allows for information transmission through both majority
agenda-setting and minority speech making. This is one of the first models of parties in Congress
that allows for the minority to have an active and vital role. Comparative statics show that, for
a wide set of parameter values, the institutional arrangement proposed is optimal for the floor
median when compared to strict majoritarian and minority-free settings.
Keywords
Agenda setting; cheap talk; parties
1. Introduction
What are political parties and what do they do? Few research agendas in the study of
American politics have proved to be as theoretically daunting as this seemingly simple
question. To be sure, the question is, prima faciae, a bit silly. After all, political parties are
everywhere and are involved in all facets of political life. Rarely does a day go by when
some mention of the Democrats or Republicans does not enter into news reports, casual
conversation, and the like. But despite this aura of familiarity that citizens and scholars
have with political parties, we seem to understand surprisingly little about what they are
and what they do.
It seems that part of this paucity in theoretical understanding is caused by the nature
of the problem. Once one sketches out a reasonable account of the role of parties, a
Corresponding author:
Adam Ramey, Assistant Professor of Politics, New York University Abu Dhabi, PO Box 129188, Abu Dhabi,
UAE.
Email: adam.ramey@nyu.edu
Ramey 133
Pandora’s Box of theoretical and empirical issues is released that leads to a multiplicity
of new considerations. Indeed, each time a corner is turned, it would seem that the new
problems that arise multiply the complexity of the problem exponentially. Put simply,
if committee assignments are, as Shepsle (1978) characterizes them, ‘the giant jigsaw
puzzle,’ then the study of the role of parties in Congress is ‘the giant labyrinth.’
1.1. Motivation
Consider the following relatively straightforward, and commonly made proposition:
political parties affect policy outcomes in the US Congress. To analyze this further, schol-
ars must clarify what it means to affect outcomes. The most obvious initial response
is simple: parties pressure legislators to vote contrary to their policy preferences. For
example, suppose that a legislator has an ideal point, ˜
θ, and that his/her party applies
some pressure α∈[0, 1] such that expected utility for policies θis given by Eu(θ)=
(1 −α)h(||θ−˜
θ||), where h(·) is some loss function. It follows that the higher the
party pressure, the less policy discrepancy affects a legislator’s expected utility. Wemight
call this direct party influence. Several scholars have looked for its existence (McCarty
et al., 2001; Snyder and Groseclose, 2000, 2001) and,though it seems likely to be present,
evidence is mixed at best.
On the other hand, parties may havea more nuanced, behind-the-scenes effect on out-
comes. More specifically, they may pre-determine the menu of available policy choices
before the actual voting takes place. Parties can thus strategically practice ‘gatekeeping’
(Crombez et al., 2006; Denzau and Mackay, 1983) and keep undesirable bills off of the
agenda (Cox and McCubbins, 1993, 2005). In this instance, any party effects occur long
before the voting stage and looking for effects in voting might lead to false conclusions.
When parties engage in this behind-the-scenes activity,we call this an example of indirect
party influence.
Unfortunately, these competing views present scholars with a great dilemma. If par-
ties engage in direct influence, then scholars can easily use roll call-based measures of
ideology to test for quantifiable party ‘pressure.’ But if parties are engaged in indirect
influence, roll-calls are themselves the subject of party manipulation and, hence, roll
call-based ideological scales (e.g. NOMINATE, Bayesian IRT estimates, Linear Factors,
ADA Scores) will all produce bias in estimated ideology. This impasse suggests that the
validity of roll call analyses hinges on which theory is ‘correct.’ Moreover, the severity
of discrepancies almost certainly varies according to any number of factors.
But some scholars might not see such a problem here. In fact, these scholars suggest
that the behind-the-scenes arguments for party effects are invalid for a number of reasons
(Krehbiel, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2007; Schickler and Rich, 1997). This line of research
concludes that the evidence for this kind of agenda-manipulative view is weak, at best,
and that majoritarian outcomes seem to win the day. Thus, if Krehbiel and those sharing
his perspective are correct, then the debate is moot, roll calls are fine to analyze, and so
on.
Howeverappealing, this line of reasoning presents scholars with a significant theoret-
ical hole. Since any sort of organizational influence, agenda or otherwise, is endogenous,
it is not clear why a median voter, knowing full well that the party will lead to sub-
optimal policy outcomes, would choose to give the party that kind of power initially.
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