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Congressional dysfunction: An information processing perspective
Author(s) -
Lewallen Jonathan,
Theriault Sean M.,
Jones Bryan D.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
regulation and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.417
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1748-5991
pISSN - 1748-5983
DOI - 10.1111/rego.12090
Subject(s) - legislation , legislature , voting , political science , focus (optics) , legislative process , perspective (graphical) , coding (social sciences) , freedom of information , public administration , process (computing) , information processing , law and economics , public economics , public relations , law , economics , politics , psychology , sociology , computer science , cognitive psychology , social science , physics , optics , artificial intelligence , operating system
The public's approval of Congress is at an all time low. The parties seem to have taken the legislative process hostage for their own electoral gain. Whereas traditional arguments about congressional dysfunction focus on polarized voting coalitions or outputs – particularly legislation – in this article we highlight congressional information processing and how it has changed in this highly partisan era. By coding congressional hearings according to the kind of information on which they focus, we find that members of Congress are receiving one‐sided information to a greater degree and are spending less time learning about potential solutions. We use these results to make numerous recommendations for improving how Congress gathers its information.