Details

Subject(s)

• United States Congress—Reform [Browse]
• Budget deficits—United States [Browse]
• Campaign funds—United States [Browse]
• Democracy—United States [Browse]
• Economic assistance, Domestic—United States [Browse]
• Grants-in-aid—United States [Browse]
• Item veto—United States [Browse]

Author

• Bickers, Kenneth N., 1960- [Browse]

Summary note

This book details the policy subsystems - links among members of Congress, interest groups, program beneficiaries, federal and subnational government agencies - that blanket the American political landscape. Robert Stein and Kenneth Bickers have constructed a database detailing federal outlays to Congressional districts for each federal program, and use it to examine four myths about the impact of policy subsystems on American government and democratic practice. These include the myth that policy subsystems are a major contributor to the federal deficit; that once created, federal programs grow inexorably and rarely die; that to garner support for their programs, subsystem actors seek to universalize the geographic scope of program benefits; and that the flow of program benefits to constituencies in congressional districts ensures the re-election of legislators.

Notes

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Contents

• 1. Policy subsystems and the pork barrel
• 2. The programmatic expansion of U.S. domestic spending
• 3. The geographic scope of domestic spending: A test of the universalism thesis
• 4. A portfolio theory of policy subsystems
• 5. Policy subsystem adaptability and resilience in the Reagan period
• 6. PAC contributions and the distribution of domestic assistance programs
• 7. Congressional elections and the pork barrel
• 8. Policy subsystems in practice and democratic theory
• App. 1 Descriptive data base of domestic assistance programs
• App. 2 Geographical data base of domestic assistance awards
• App. 3 Programs by agency and policy type
• App. 4 Departments and their distributive policy agencies
• App. 5 Federal agencies in four cabinet departments: Budgetary changes proposed by the Reagan administration for FY1983
• App. 6 Financial assistance programs by public law bundle-- App. 7 PACs whose parent interest groups testified in hearings, grouped by public law and PAC coalition
• App. 8 Roll call votes in the U.S. House of Representatives in nine public laws
• App. 9 Probit results for House roll call votes on nine public laws
• App. 10 Concepts and measures.

Show 14 more Contents items

Other title(s)

Cambridge University Press. Political science.

ISBN

9781139174459 (ebook)

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