The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns

Sulkin shows that legislators' campaigns have a lasting legacy in the content of their behavior in office.

Tracy Sulkin (Author)

9780521730488, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 April 2011

232 pages, 19 b/w illus. 19 tables
22.9 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

"In The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns, Tracy Sulkin provides an excellent follow-up to her first volume, Issue Politics in Congress (2005). As with Issue Politics, Legislative Legacy demonstrates a keen interest in connecting congressional elections and legislative behavior. The books asks a simple question: do legislators keep their campaign promises?... This is a timely work, given the profoundly low level of public approval for the country's most democratic branch of government. Moreover, the topic is normatively important, in that it sheds light on representation." -Elizabeth A. Oldmixon, University of North Texas, American Review of Politics

Do members of Congress follow through on the appeals they make in campaigns? The answer to this question lies at the heart of assessments of democratic legitimacy. This study demonstrates that, contrary to the conventional wisdom that candidates' appeals are just 'cheap talk', campaigns actually have a lasting legacy in the content of representatives' and senators' behavior in office. Levels of promise-keeping vary in a systematic fashion across legislators, across types of activity, across time and across chamber. Moreover, legislators' responsiveness to their appeals shapes their future electoral fortunes and career choices, and their activity on their campaign themes leaves a tangible trace in public policy outputs. Understanding the dynamics of promise-keeping thus has important implications for our evaluations of the quality of campaigns and the strength of representation in the United States.

1. Promises to keep?
2. Campaigns as signals
3. Campaign appeals and legislative activity
4. Mechanisms underlying promise-keeping
5. Promise-making and promise-keeping on defense and environmental issues
6. The who, when, and where of follow-through
7. The electoral implications of promise-keeping
8. Promises and policymaking
9. Representation, responsiveness, and the electoral connection.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], History of the Americas [HBJK]