Assignment 1

Christopher Schwarz
Summary of Mayhew (1974) and Weingast and Marshall (1987)

I. Mayhew (1974)
Following the assumption that Congressmen are rational self-interested reelection seekers, the author posits that, opposed to Downs party based model (which is more applicable to
executive behavior in the United States), Congressmen will act in a manner that maximizes
their reelection prospects. Towards this end, legislators spend considerable resources on three
activities - the advertisement of oneself without any policies bound to them, the claiming
of credit for certain legislative outcomes as well as particularized benefits, and their position of certain issues. Alongside these activities are the congressional structural institutions
that facilitate them - congressional offices, committees, and parties. Whereas congressional
offices allow legislators to more easily broadcast themselves across their districts, committees are seen as a conduit through which elected officials may claim the credit of certain
legislative outcomes as well as take clear issue positions. Parties, have the more limited role
of providing support for their members while allowing them to vote their constituencies.
This voting towards the inclination of their constituencies, however, only mandates that
the representative is on the right side of the issue, not necessarily the winning side. In
this way, the assembly functions of expressing public opinion, handling constituent requests,
and legislating/overseeing administration fall prey to the institutional perils/effects of delay,
particularism, servicing the organized, and symbolism as well as the maintenance problems
of allocation, overall economic effects of policy, and fiscal disregard. The recourse to these
issues are the strengthening of the executive, stronger parties, exposure, and the regulation
of election resources.

I. Weingast and Marshall (1987)

The authors begin by presenting the problem that a huge variety of interests are represented in the legislature, yet almost none of which are represented by a majority. To gain
the benefits of policies, such interests must agree to exchange support. Such an exchange is
analogous to the gains from trade studied in economics, that two or more parties engaged
in trade of a commodity (in this case, votes or support for a policy) are made better off
because of the trade due to an implicit expansion of their production possibilities frontier (in
this case, the realization of policy benefits). However, a number of issues arise regarding the
method in which these trades are accomplished, enforced, and maintained over time. Much
like firms are subject to a number of agency problems in their pursuit of profit, legislators
are subject to analogous problems in their pursuit of reelection from their constituents noncontemporaneous benefit flows and nonsimultaneous exchange. Assuming repeat play and
reputation are not a sufficient mechanism to police bargains, such situations are vulnerable
to opportunistic ex post reneging. These agency problems are proposed to be minimized
by Congress through the use of committee positions and their control over not only the
agenda, but their tacit veto power on alternative policies within their jurisdiction. As such,
committee members are insulated from ex post reneging. Given that the set of points that
command a majority against any given status quo is quite large, committees are able to bias
policy proposals to those that benefit them the most. When a coalition is formed within a
committee, they are then able to bring a single bill to the floor, allowing for less chance of
reneging and greater coalition stability by maximizing their personal benefits with respect
to the chance that their proposal will pass on the floor. As such, instead of bidding for votes,
legislators bid for seats on committees associated with the policy area they find valuable for
their reelection.