About News Members of Congress are Specializing Less Often. Volden and Wiseman Say That Makes Them Less Effective. Sep 18, 2020 Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman Members of Congress are Specializing Less Often. Volden and Wiseman Say That Makes Them Less Effective. The U.S. Capitol on Monday. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg News)Editors’ note: This article is part of “Rethinking Our Democracy,” a series on institutional reforms to Congress and the presidency, which is a joint initiative by the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago and Protect Democracy. All other articles within this series can be found here. The current deadlock in the government policy process has many causes. Congress and the president have difficulty working together because of partisan polarization and frequently divided government. That leads the president to try to govern through executive orders, and Congress to push back through oversight investigations, budget brinkmanship and even impeachment. However, one problem gets less attention, even though it has important long-term consequences. Increasingly, both the administration and Congress lack policy expertise, which makes it harder to solve policy problems, break through political disagreement and build coalitions. In our research, we have focused on how lawmakers in Congress acquire expertise, perhaps improving their effectiveness at lawmaking. We have found that legislators are becoming less specialized, and hence less able to acquire the deep expertise needed to overcome gridlock. Members of Congress can be foxes or hedgehogs Our work explores how legislators’ specialization in particular issues affects their ability to advance their agendas. To study this, we looked at each bill proposed in each two-year Congress from 1973-2016, classifying into one of 19 different issue areas from agriculture to education to international trade. We then examined how many issues each member of the House and the Senate tried to tackle in their proposals, as well as how much attention they paid to their top issue. Finally, we compared those who specialized — likely developing policy expertise — with the generalists, to see which strategy was most effective. We calculated members’ “legislative effectiveness scores” by looking at each lawmaker’s agenda, how far each bill moved through the lawmaking process, and how important the changes it advocated are. In doing so, we also accounted for other factors, such as whether the legislator had a powerful position such as committee chair. Building on the words of 7th century B.C. Greek mercenary-poet Archilochus, 20th-century philosopher Isaiah Berlin drew a distinction between specialists, who he denoted as “hedgehogs,” and generalists, who he labeled “foxes.” In turn, we refer to a member of Congress as a fox if she dedicates no more than a quarter of her legislative agenda to any specific policy. A hedgehog, in contrast, dedicates at least half of her agenda to the policy in which she seeks (or already has) expertise. The remaining members of Congress are somewhat more balanced in their portfolios. Obvious foxes in the current Congress, based on their past patterns of specialization, include Reps. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah). On the other side of the spectrum, Reps. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) and Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) emerge as hedgehogs in the House, while Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) have cultivated some of the most focused policy agendas in the Senate over recent congresses. We found that in general, hedgehogs are more effective than foxes. The most effective members of the House dedicate about 60 percent of their lawmaking portfolios to a single policy area and limit their portfolio to no more than four issue areas. Effective senators have broader portfolios, which go together with their larger and more diverse constituencies. But even there, the most effective lawmakers dedicate approximately 50 percent of their legislative agendas to a single issue. Specialization has benefits regardless of party, stage of career or position, although we did find that it seems particularly valuable for senior lawmakers and for subcommittee chairs. Lawmakers are becoming less specialized Nonetheless, the graphs below show that, while the scope of specialization in both chambers has fluctuated across time, specialization has become relatively rare in both the House and the Senate in recent years. Today, only 20 percent of House members are hedgehogs (dedicating at least half of their bill portfolio to a single issue), with only 5 to 10 percent of senators falling into this category. Furthermore, compared to the mid-1990s (and many other points in congressional history) there are notably fewer hedgehogs and more foxes than there used to be. Figure: Craig Volden & Alan E. WisemanFigure: Craig Volden & Alan E. WisemanSimply stated, generalists are replacing specialists in Congress. And the rise of generalists appears to accompany less-effective lawmaking. READ FULL ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST MONKEY CAGE Craig Volden Craig Volden is a professor of public policy and politics, with appointments in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. Volden is also the Co-Director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking. He studies legislative politics and the interaction among political institutions, including within American federalism. Read full bio Related Content Craig Volden Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness Research Spatial models of policymaking have evolved from the median voter theorem through the inclusion of institutional considerations such as political parties, committees, and various voting and amendment rules. Such models, however, implicitly assume that no policy is more effective than another at solving public policy problems and that all proposers are equally capable of advancing proposals. Party Calls and Reelection in the US Senate Research Minozzi and Volden advance the idea that a substantial portion of partisan voting activity in Congress is a simple call to unity that is especially easily embraced by ideological extremists. If correct, Minozzi and Volden’s findings should extend from the House to the Senate, despite differences in institutional structures and in tools at the disposal of party leaders across the two chambers. Volden Discusses New Book on ‘New Books Network’ Podcast News Batten’s Craig Volden discusses his new book, "Why Bad Policies Spread (And Good Ones Don't)" with Ursula Hackett, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London. Why Do Bad Policies So Often Spread But Good Ones Don’t? News In their new book "Why bad policies spread (and good one’s don’t)," Batten's Craig Volden and Charles R. Shipan draw from a wide range of policy domains to examine whether states learn from another to improve the spread of good or effective policies, which policies spread for which reasons and which conditions lead to good or bad policies to spread, among other core questions. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe
Craig Volden Craig Volden is a professor of public policy and politics, with appointments in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. Volden is also the Co-Director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking. He studies legislative politics and the interaction among political institutions, including within American federalism. Read full bio
Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness Research Spatial models of policymaking have evolved from the median voter theorem through the inclusion of institutional considerations such as political parties, committees, and various voting and amendment rules. Such models, however, implicitly assume that no policy is more effective than another at solving public policy problems and that all proposers are equally capable of advancing proposals.
Party Calls and Reelection in the US Senate Research Minozzi and Volden advance the idea that a substantial portion of partisan voting activity in Congress is a simple call to unity that is especially easily embraced by ideological extremists. If correct, Minozzi and Volden’s findings should extend from the House to the Senate, despite differences in institutional structures and in tools at the disposal of party leaders across the two chambers.
Volden Discusses New Book on ‘New Books Network’ Podcast News Batten’s Craig Volden discusses his new book, "Why Bad Policies Spread (And Good Ones Don't)" with Ursula Hackett, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Why Do Bad Policies So Often Spread But Good Ones Don’t? News In their new book "Why bad policies spread (and good one’s don’t)," Batten's Craig Volden and Charles R. Shipan draw from a wide range of policy domains to examine whether states learn from another to improve the spread of good or effective policies, which policies spread for which reasons and which conditions lead to good or bad policies to spread, among other core questions.