Partners in Advocacy: Lobbyists and Government Officials in Washington

One of the most important demonstrations of power in Washington is the ability to recruit sitting government officials to become active proponents of one’s position. Many have suggested money is the key: Campaign contributions buy friends, access, and perhaps even policy activism. We provide an alternative view based on a deceptively simple observation: Lobbyists rarely lobby alone. We show empirically that government policymakers respond to the overall structure of conflict, not the resources of individual lobbying groups. Our project is based on in-depth interviews with over 300 policy advocates and systematic information on each of more than 2,000 advocates playing a significant role in a random sample of 98 policy issues in the United States federal government from 1999 to 2002

The Geographic Distribution of US Executions

We review statistical patterns of the geographic distribution of US executions, compare them to homicides, and demonstrate extremely high degrees of concentration of executions in the modern period compared to previous historical periods. We further show that this unprecedented level of concentration has been increasing over the past 20 years. We demonstrate that it is virtually uncorrelated with factors related to homicides. Finally, we show that it corresponds to a statistical distribution associated with “self-reinforcing” processes: a power-law or exponential distribution. These findings stand whether we look at individual counties within death-penalty states, across the 50 states of the United States, or look at the international distribution of executions across countries in recent years. The substantive conclusion from the statistical patterns observed is that these cannot be explained merely by random variation around some general average. Rather, localities start down a path, then are reinforced in their pathways. There appears to be little to no logic about why certain counties are the high-use counties, whereas the vast majority have never executed a single individual in 40 years of experience with the modern death penalty, often in spite of thousands of homicides. Our research indicates that a main determinant of whether an individual will be executed is not the crime they commit, but the jurisdiction’s experience with executing others. This is not acceptable—legally, morally, or constitutionally

Electoral turnover has very little effect on the spending habits of Western democracies

Do new electoral brooms sweep clean the economic policies of the parties that went before? In new research that examines how incoming Western governments set their spending priorities, Derek A. Epp, John Lovett, and Frank R. Baumgartner find that budgets tend to be set with little regard to a government’s ideology, be it left or right. They argue that when setting budgets, incoming policymakers are constrained by social, economic and international realities that are largely beyond their control. This means that budgets are set consistently and inconsistently with what went before at roughly the same rate; left-wing parties do not necessarily favor “big government” nor to right parties always seek to reduce government spending

Event dependence in U.S. executions

Since 1976, the United States has seen over 1,400 judicial executions, and these have been highly concentrated in only a few states and counties. The number of executions across counties appears to fit a stretched distribution. These distributions are typically reflective of self-reinforcing processes where the probability of observing an event increases for each previous event. To examine these processes, we employ two-pronged empirical strategy. First, we utilize bootstrapped Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests to determine whether the pattern of executions reflect a stretched distribution, and confirm that they do. Second, we test for event-dependence using the Conditional Frailty Model. Our tests estimate the monthly hazard of an execution in a given county, accounting for the number of previous executions, homicides, poverty, and population demographics. Controlling for other factors, we find that the number of prior executions in a county increases the probability of the next execution and accelerates its timing. Once a jurisdiction goes down a given path, the path becomes self-reinforcing, causing the counties to separate out into those never executing (the vast majority of counties) and those which use the punishment frequently. This finding is of great legal and normative concern, and ultimately, may not be consistent with the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution

Who says what to whom? Alignments and arguments in EU policy-making

In the EU multilevel polity, domestic interest groups seek to shape EU legislation by accessing both national and EU institutions. Previous studies indicated that institutional and issue contexts, as well as organizational characteristics shape their strategies of interest representation. However, we know much less about how alignments and arguments impact on their participation in EU and national policy consultations. Addressing this gap, we investigate the lobbying strategies of almost 2,900 national interest organizations from five member states (Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) on 20 EU directive proposals bringing also a new empirical scope to the study of multilevel interest representation. The findings indicate that alignments and arguments shape the participation of domestic interest groups in consultations on EU policies. We infer from our study that some general predictions of interest group behaviour are overstretched and outline four variations of interest representation routines

Preemptive and reactive spending in U.S. House races

This paper examines the spending behavior of candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Particular attention is paid to the timing of receipts and expenditures over the complete 2-year election cycle. Incumbents raise and spend large amounts of money very early in the race, and this preemptive spending may have a great impact on the selection of challengers and therefore on electoral outcomes. In addition, a model of reactive spending is tested for the general election period. Incumbents' expenditures are a function of the underlying partisan division in the district, the strength of the challenge, and candidates' feelings of vulnerability. Incumbents are strategic actors who attempt to maximize their chances of reelection. Early in the term, they spend preemptively in an effort to influence the selection of their challengers. Later in the term, they spend in reaction to the strength of their challengers' campaign. The role of money in congressional campaigns is neither simple nor direct. More attention needs to be given to the strategic uses of money in the period leading up to the general election campaign as well as to the dynamics of receipts and expenditures over an entire election cycle.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45496/1/11109_2004_Article_BF00987590.pd

Newspaper attention and policy activities in Spain

Spain"s newspapers are characterised by strong partisan identities. We demonstrate that the two leading newspapers nonetheless show powerful similarities in the topics of their coverage over time. The media system is strongly related to the policy process and it shows similar levels of skew (attention focuses on just a few topics) and friction (attention lurches rapidly from topic to topic) as others have shown for policy processes more generally. Further, media attention is significantly related to parliamentary activities. Oral questions in parliament track closely with media attention over time. Our assessment is based on a comprehensive database of all front-page stories (over 95,000 stories) in El Paı´s and El Mundo, Spain"s largest daily newspapers, and all 7,446 oral questions from 1996 to 2009. The paper shows that explanations of friction and skew in governmental activities should incorporate media dynamics as well. Political leaders are clearly sensitive to media salience

Total Cardiovascular and Limb Events and the Impact of Polyvascular Disease in Chronic Symptomatic Peripheral Artery Disease.

Background Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is associated with heightened risk for major adverse cardiovascular and limb events, but data on the burden of risk for total (first and potentially subsequent) events, and the association with polyvascular disease, are limited. This post hoc analysis of the EUCLID (Examining Use of Ticagrelor in Peripheral Artery Disease) trial evaluated total cardiovascular and limb events among patients with symptomatic PAD, overall and by number of symptomatic vascular territories. Methods and Results In the EUCLID trial, patients with symptomatic PAD (lower extremity revascularization >30 days before randomization or ankle-brachial index ≤0.80) were randomized to treatment with ticagrelor or clopidogrel. Relative effects on total events (cardiovascular death; nonfatal myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke; acute limb ischemia, unstable angina, and transient ischemic attack requiring hospitalization; coronary, carotid, and peripheral revascularization procedures; and amputation for symptomatic PAD) were summarized by hazard ratios (HRs), whereas absolute risks were estimated by incidence rates and mean cumulative functions. Among 13 885 randomized patients, 7600 total cardiovascular and limb events occurred during a median 2.7 years of follow-up, translating to 60.0 and 62.5 events per 100 patients through 3 years for the ticagrelor and clopidogrel groups, respectively (HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.89-1.03; P=0.27). Among 1393 patients with disease in 3 vascular territories, event accrual rates through 3 years for the ticagrelor and clopidogrel groups were 87.3 and 97.7 events per 100 patients, respectively. Absolute risk reductions for ticagrelor relative to clopidogrel at 3 years were -0.2, 6.7, and 10.3 events per 100 patients for 1, 2, and 3 affected vascular territories, respectively (Pinteraction=0.09). Conclusions Patients with symptomatic PAD have nearly double the number of total events than first events, with rates reflecting the number of affected vascular territories. These findings highlight the clinical relevance of quantifying disease burden in terms of total events and the need for long-term preventive treatments in high-risk patient populations. Registration URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/; Unique identifier: NCT01732822

Association of Heart Failure With Outcomes Among Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease: Insights From EUCLID.

Background Peripheral artery disease (PAD) and heart failure (HF) are each independently associated with poor outcomes. Risk factors associated with new-onset HF in patients with primary PAD are unknown. Furthermore, how the presence of HF is associated with outcomes in patients with PAD is unknown. Methods and Results This analysis examined risk relationships of HF on outcomes in patients with symptomatic PAD randomized to ticagrelor or clopidogrel as part of the EUCLID (Examining Use of Ticagrelor in Peripheral Arterial Disease) trial. Patients were stratified based on presence of HF at enrollment. Cox models were used to determine the association of HF with outcomes. A separate Cox model was used to identify risk factors associated with development of HF during follow-up. Patients with PAD and HF had over twice the rate of concomitant coronary artery disease as those without HF. Patients with PAD and HF had significantly increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (hazard ratio [HR], 1.31; 95% CI, 1.13-1.51) and all-cause mortality (HR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.19-1.63). In patients with PAD, the presence of HF was associated with significantly less bleeding (HR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.45-0.96). Characteristics associated with HF development included age ≥66 (HR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.18-1.40 per 5 years), diabetes mellitus (HR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.41-2.43), and weight (bidirectionally associated, ≥76 kg, HR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.64-0.93; <76 kg, HR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.07-1.16). Conclusions Patients with PAD and HF have a high rate of coronary artery disease with a high risk for major adverse cardiovascular events and death. These data support the possible need for aggressive treatment of (recurrent) atherosclerotic disease in PAD, especially patients with HF