Issue Politics in Congress

Issue Politics in Congress
ISBN-10
1139448617
ISBN-13
9781139448611
Category
Political Science
Language
English
Published
2005-10-10
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Author
Tracy Sulkin

Description

Do representatives and senators respond to the critiques raised by their challengers? This study, one of the first to explore how legislators' experiences as candidates shape their subsequent behavior as policy makers, demonstrates that they do. Winning legislators regularly take up their challengers' priority issues from the last campaign and act on them in office, a phenomenon called 'issue uptake'. This attentiveness to their challengers' issues reflects a widespread and systematic yet largely unrecognized mode of responsiveness in the US Congress, but it is one with important benefits for the legislators who undertake it and for the health and legitimacy of the representative process. This book provides fresh insight into questions regarding the electoral connection in legislative behavior, the role of campaigns and elections, and the nature and quality of congressional representation.

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