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Agenda Setting and Strategic Abstentions

Fri, September 1, 8:00 to 9:30am, Westin St. Francis, Elizabethan B

Abstract

In this paper I analyze parties’ voting behavior within a Congress where the President has strong agenda setting powers. In particular, I derive theoretical expectations for the strategic use of abstentions, and test them using data on Chilean Lower House from 2006 to 2016, which is an ideal setting to evaluate them: abstentions are formally recorded, and during the period under analysis there is variation both in the Lower House composition as well the President’s coalition, providing a clear test of the response of parties to a change in the agenda setter. The hypothesis are evaluate through statistical analysis of a novel dataset that adds to the roll call data contextual information on the vote and parties, including variables that reflect whether agenda setting power is exercised, and relevance for the party and the voters of the draft bill voted, measured by issue salience.

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