IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v6y2016i2p2158244016643143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Effects of Personal Characteristics and Context on U.S. House Speakers’ Leadership Styles, 1789-2006

Author

Listed:
  • John E. Owens
  • Scot Schraufnagel
  • Quan Li

Abstract

Research on congressional leadership has been dominated in recent decades by contextual interpretations that see leaders’ behavior as best explained by the environment in which they seek to exercise leadership—particularly, the preference homogeneity and size of their party caucus. The role of agency is thus discounted, and leaders’ personal characteristics and leadership styles are underplayed. Focusing specifically on the speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives from the first to the 110th Congress, we construct measures of each speaker’s commitment to comity and leadership assertiveness. We find the scores reliable and then test the extent to which a speaker’s style is the product of both political context and personal characteristics. Regression estimates on speakers’ personal assertiveness scores provide robust support for a context-plus-personal characteristics explanation, whereas estimates of their comity scores show that speakers’ personal backgrounds trump context.

Suggested Citation

  • John E. Owens & Scot Schraufnagel & Quan Li, 2016. "Assessing the Effects of Personal Characteristics and Context on U.S. House Speakers’ Leadership Styles, 1789-2006," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(2), pages 21582440166, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:6:y:2016:i:2:p:2158244016643143
    DOI: 10.1177/2158244016643143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244016643143
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2158244016643143?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asher, Herbert B., 1973. "The Learning of Legislative Norms," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 499-513, June.
    2. McGann, A J & Grofman, Bernard & Koetzle, W, 2002. "Why Party Leaders Are More Extreme Than Their Members: Modeling Sequential Elimination Elections in the U.S. House of Representatives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 337-356, December.
    3. Cooper, Joseph & Brady, David W., 1981. "Institutional Context and Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to Rayburn," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(2), pages 411-425, June.
    4. Uslaner, Eric M., 1991. "Comity in Context: Confrontation in Historical Perspective," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 45-77, January.
    5. Binder, Sarah A., 1996. "The Partisan Basis of Procedural Choice: Allocating Parliamentary Rights in the House, 1789–1990," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 8-20, March.
    6. Fiorina, Morris P., 1994. "Divided Government in the American States: A Byproduct of Legislative Professionalism?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(2), pages 304-316, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    2. Stratmann, Thomas, 2005. "Ballot access restrictions and candidate entry in elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 59-71, March.
    3. K. Kanthak, 2004. "Exclusive Committee Assignments and Party Pressure in the U.S. House of Representatives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 391-412, February.
    4. repec:gig:joupla:v:3:y:2011:i:3:p:95-126 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Thomas Stratmann, 2006. "Contribution limits and the effectiveness of campaign spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 461-474, December.
    6. Fedeli, Silvia & Forte, Francesco & Leonida, Leone, 2014. "The law of survival of the political class: An analysis of the Italian parliament (1946–2013)," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 102-121.
    7. Auerbach, Jan, 2022. "Productive Office and Political Elitism," MPRA Paper 114582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Bowen, T. Renee & Krasa, Stefan & Hwang, Ilwoo, 2020. "Agenda-Setter Power Dynamics: Learning in Multi-Issue Bargaining," CEPR Discussion Papers 15406, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Joel Slemrod, 2005. "The Etiology of Tax Complexity: Evidence from U.S. State Income Tax Systems," Public Finance Review, , vol. 33(3), pages 279-299, May.
    10. Kotakorpi, Kaisa & Poutvaara, Panu, 2011. "Pay for politicians and candidate selection: An empirical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 877-885, August.
    11. Stefano Gagliarducci & Tommaso Nannicini & Paolo Naticchioni, 2007. "Outside Income and Moral Hazard: The Elusive Quest for Good Politicians," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-164, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    12. Bowen, Renee & Hwang, Ilwoo & Krasa, Stefan, 2022. "Personal power dynamics in bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    13. Shuyuan Mary Ho & Merrill Warkentin, 0. "Leader’s dilemma game: An experimental design for cyber insider threat research," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    14. James Lo, 2018. "Dynamic ideal point estimation for the European Parliament, 1980–2009," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 229-246, July.
    15. Peter Calcagno & Edward Lopez, 2012. "Divided we vote," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 517-536, June.
    16. Iain Hampsher‐Monk & Andrew Hindmoor, 2010. "Rational Choice and Interpretive Evidence: Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 47-65, February.
    17. King, David & Zeckhauser, Richard & Kim, Mark, 2004. "The Management Performance of the U.S. States," Working Paper Series rwp04-028, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    18. Gary W. Cox, 1999. "The Empirical Content of Rational Choice Theory," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 147-169, April.
    19. Jon R. Bond & Richard Fleisher & Michael Northrup, 1988. "Public Opinion and Presidential Support," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 499(1), pages 47-63, September.
    20. Johannes Becker & Andreas Peichl & Johannes Rincke, 2009. "Politicians’ outside earnings and electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 379-394, September.
    21. Gagliarducci, Stefano & Nannicini, Tommaso & Naticchioni, Paolo, 2010. "Moonlighting politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 688-699, October.

    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:sae:sagope:v:6:y:2016:i:2:p:2158244016643143. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.