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Interlegislator Relations and Policy Making: A Sociological Study of Roll‐Call Voting in a State Legislature 1
Author(s) -
Peoples Clayton D.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2008.00086.x
Subject(s) - legislator , voting , legislature , roll call , explanatory power , disapproval voting , state (computer science) , voting behavior , politics , power (physics) , sociology , state legislature , positive economics , political science , economics , law and economics , law , computer science , epistemology , legislation , philosophy , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics
Legislative roll‐call voting is crucial in policy making. Standard approaches to studying roll‐call voting focus on legislator attributes, ignoring how social factors, such as legislator relations, may drive voting. Using original data based on a state legislature, I adopt a relational approach to examine how legislator relations impact roll‐call voting net of attributes. Results show that relations strongly influence voting, adding significantly to the explanatory power of the models. These results imply that standard approaches to studying roll‐call voting should incorporate consideration of social factors, suggesting the value of social influence models in studies of political phenomena.