2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

events during the summer of 2006. The content analysis focuses
on political biases and the competition for frames that emerge.
Paper Presidential Responsiveness to Public Opinion
Justin S. Vaughn, Texas A&M University
Overview: This paper examines how the political environment and
the type of presidential behavior shape the responsiveness of
presidential policy positions to the public’s ideological
preferences.
Paper The Presidency as Seen by Presidents in the Inaugural
Addresses
Michael E. Bailey, Berry College
Overview: Here I examine the inaugural addresses to note how
presidents over time have rhetorically treated the office of the
presidency within America’s constitutional separation of powers
system, as well as from the broader context of democracy.
Disc. Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, University of North Texas
Laurie L. Rice, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
39-8 CONGRESS AND THE BUREAUCRACY
Room Montrose 1, 7 th Floor, Sat at 9:50 am
Chair Jason A. MacDonald, Kent State University
Paper Divided Government and Bureaucratic Gridlock: The Case of
Regulatory Policy
Erik K. Godwin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Overview: Divided government causes federal regulatory gridlock
when the houses of Congress are of different parties, but not when
Congress is unified. This has implications for policymaking and
extant theories of congressional control of the bureaucracy.
Paper Impacts of Divided Government on Congressional Use of
Temporary Authorization
Sebahattin Gultekin, University of North Texas
Overview: The Congress is believed to hold bureaucracy
accountable effectively through various means including
temporary authorization. This paper focuses on impacts of divided
government on congressional use of temporary authorization.
Paper Congressional Control over Bureaucracy: Ex Ante vs. Ex Post
Controls
Hong Min Park, Washington University, St. Louis
Overview: The paper examines how Congress controls the
bureaucracy in the United States. By using time-series data
(1947-2001), the paper argues 1) political parties matter, and 2) ex
ante and ex post mechanisms are complementary, not
supplementary.
Paper BRAC Attack: Delegation, Politics, and the Closing of
Military Bases
David C. W. Parker, Indiana University, South Bend
Colin E. Flora, Indiana University, South Bend
Overview: This study seeks to examine the BRAC process over
the past 15 years to determine if closure and realignment decisions
are based strictly on military merit or whether other political
factors play a role.
Paper One for the Legislators, Two for the Bureaucrats
Laila F. Sorurbakhsh, University of Houston
Overview: This paper examines the relationship between special
legislative commissions and the bureaucracy in developing
countries, as they are formed in response to national crises.
Disc. Rene Lindstaedt, SUNY, Stony Brook
Jason A. MacDonald, Kent State University
40-1 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS AND THE
ELECTORAL CONNECTION ACROSS TIME
Room Parlor B, 6 th Floor, Sat at 9:50 am
Chair William T. Bianco, Indiana University
Paper Party Division and Coalition Formation in U.S. Senate
Elections, 1870-1913
Wendy J. Schiller, Brown University
Charles H. Stewart III, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Overview: Using original archival data, we will analyze balloting
in state legislatures on the choice for U.S. senator, and we intend
to explain the wide variation in the number of ballots it took to
elect a senator across states and across time.
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Paper Midterm Decline in Nineteenth Century House Elections
Erik J. Engstrom, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Overview: This paper considers a unique, but overlooked,
characteristic of nineteenth century American elections to examine
competing explanations of midterm decline. By comparing the
sources of surge and decline in synchronized versus nonsynchronized
elections.
Paper Examining the Electoral Connection Across Time
Jamie I. Carson, University of Georgia
Jeffrey A. Jenkins, Northwestern University
Overview: We investigate the incidence of an “electoral
connection” in the context of nineteenth century congressional
politics. In examining this trend across time, we detail how the
dynamics of the electoral connection have changed in response to
changes in both.
Paper Building the Road to Damascus, Ohio: Post Roads, the
Electoral Connection, and the Antebellum Pork Barrel
John Baughman, Bates College
Overview: This paper investigates the development of
constituency-oriented behavior by members of the antebellum
House of Representatives in the form of post road construction.
Disc. Jason M. Roberts, University of Minnesota
William T. Bianco, Indiana University
41-10 JUDICIAL POWER: HIERARCHY AND THE
SEPARATION OF POWERS (Co-sponsored with
Public Law, see 42-17)
Room Burnham 1, 7 th Floor, Sat at 9:50 am
Chair Gretchen Helmke, Rochester University
Paper Pivotal Politics and Compliance in the Judicial Hierarchy
Jeffrey R. Lax, Columbia University
Overview: I present a formal model of the judicial hierarchy,
which makes explicit predictions as to which Supreme Court
justices will be pivotal for inducing compliance in the lower
courts, given the Supreme Court's internal rules.
Paper The Supreme Court and America's Governing Coalitions,
1790-2004
Charles M. Cameron, Princeton University
Tom Clark, Princeton University
Jee-Kwang Park, Pennsylvania State University
Overview: We study how one-party dominance of the presidency
drives the Supreme Court to the fringes of American politics,
engendering judicial activism and court-curbing legislation in
Congress.
Paper Judicial Deterrence of Legislation
James R. Rogers, Texas A&M University
Overview: Why does judicial review deter unconstitutional
legislation when courts cannot directly impose sanctions on
legislators for unconstitutional enactments? We develop a model
to identify the conditions under which deterrence does (and does
not) occur.
Paper An Informational Theory of Judicial Organization
Robert Anderson, Stanford University
Overview: This paper develops an informational approach to
explaining judicial organization. The paper uses a principal-agent
model with asymmetric information to explore the relationships
among law, facts, and doctrine in the judicial hierarchy.
Disc. James R. Rogers, Texas A&M University
Gretchen Helmke, Rochester University
42-11 RELIGION, SPEECH, AND RELIGIOUS SPEECH
(Co-sponsored with Politics and Religions, see 53-15)
Room Clark 5, 7 th Floor, Sat at 9:50 am
Chair Jeffrey H. Anderson, United States Air Force Academy
Paper The Essential Principle of Nonestablishment
Dennis J. Goldford, Drake University
Overview: In this 2007 MPSA paper I differentiate my own
conception of the essential principle of the Establishment Clause,
what I call the principle of non-position-taking, from Justice
O'Connor's concept of endorsement and from the concept of
neutrality.