IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v47y2003i4p714-728.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Geographic Politics in the U.S. House of Representatives: Coalition Building and Distribution of Benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Frances E. Lee

Abstract

This article argues that scholars need to consider the structure of House representation to better understand distributive politics. Because House districts (unlike states) are not administrative units in the federal system, House members cannot effectively claim credit for most grant‐in‐aid funds. Instead, their best credit‐claiming opportunities lie in earmarked projects, a small fraction of federal grant dollars. As a consequence, I expect to find: (1) political factors have a much greater effect on the distribution of earmarked projects than on federal funds generally; and (2) project grants are a better support‐building tool for coalition leaders than allocations to states. I test this argument with a study of the 1998 reauthorization of surface transportation programs and find strong support for both hypotheses.

Suggested Citation

  • Frances E. Lee, 2003. "Geographic Politics in the U.S. House of Representatives: Coalition Building and Distribution of Benefits," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(4), pages 714-728, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:47:y:2003:i:4:p:714-728
    DOI: 10.1111/1540-5907.00050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5907.00050
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1540-5907.00050?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yaniv Reingewertz & Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2020. "Distributive spending and presidential partisan politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 65-85, October.
    2. Maaser, Nicola & Stratmann, Thomas, 2018. "Election rules, legislators' incentives, and policy outcomes: Evidence from the mixed member system in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 227-239.
    3. Stratmann, Thomas, 2013. "The effects of earmarks on the likelihood of reelection," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 341-355.
    4. Jeremy L. Hall, 2010. "The Distribution of Federal Economic Development Grant Funds: A Consideration of Need and the Urban/Rural Divide," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 24(4), pages 311-324, November.
    5. Jowei Chen, 2010. "The Effect of Electoral Geography on Pork Barreling in Bicameral Legislatures," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 301-322, April.
    6. Royce Carroll & Henry A. Kim, 2010. "Party Government and the “Cohesive Power of Public Plunder”," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 34-44, January.
    7. Tiberiu Dragu & Jonathan Rodden, 2010. "Representation and regional redistribution in federations," Working Papers 2010/16, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    8. Clio Andris & David Lee & Marcus J Hamilton & Mauro Martino & Christian E Gunning & John Armistead Selden, 2015. "The Rise of Partisanship and Super-Cooperators in the U.S. House of Representatives," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    9. Hymel, Kent, 2019. "If you build it, they will drive: Measuring induced demand for vehicle travel in urban areas," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 57-66.
    10. Jeffrey Lazarus, 2010. "Giving the People What They Want? The Distribution of Earmarks in the U.S. House of Representatives," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 338-353, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:47:y:2003:i:4:p:714-728. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.