The Dimensionality of Cosponsorship Behavior in the House of Representatives

16 September 2020, Version 2
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed at the time of posting.

Abstract

Legislative stability exists in the House of Representatives, but there is not a consensus on whether this stability is produced by a Preference Induced Equilibrium (PIE), which predict that if preferences are unidimensional an equilibrium can be found at the position of the median legislator, or a Structure Induced Equilibrium (SIE), which predicts that multidimensional legislative preferences must be constrained by institutions to produce stable outcomes. While both explanations predict that roll-call behavior will be unidimensional, they make competing predictions for less constrained behavior such as cosponsorship behavior. By relying on Bayesian item-response methods that allow for the assessment of dimensionality of both cosponsorship behavior and roll-call behavior on a comparable scale--which has been problematic in the past--I provide evidence in support of a SIE in the House. While roll-call behavior is unidimensional, only around 30% of cosponsorship behavior is explained by the first dimension of legislative preferences.

Keywords

Ideal Points Item-response dimensionality preferences legislative behavior

Supplementary materials

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Description
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Title
Appendix: The Dimensionality of Cosponsorship Behavior in the House of Representatives
Description
Appendix, which includes summaries of data, formulas of indexes, and additional diagnostic statistics.
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