Capacity for Conflict: On the Link between Professionalism and Fiscal Health

• In Event: Institutions and Representation in State Legislative Politics

Abstract

Both journalistic and academic evaluations of representative democracies have frequently used economic indicators such as GDP growth and credit risk to measure a government’s ability to effectively represent the interests of its citizens. Given the importance of policy volatility to such economic indicators, recent research has sought to draw a connection between a legislature’s capacity to legislate and negative economic outcomes such as credit risk. Indeed, while empowering legislatures with professional resources for legislation may improve policy innovation or quality, this research suggests that an externality of providing such resources could be policy instability and uncertainty deleterious to economic health. Such findings are puzzling, however, given that other research has shown a negative association between legislative professionalism and policy change in state legislatures. In this study, I address this puzzle by further interrogating the association between legislative capacity and negative economic outcomes in the U.S. states. More specifically, I investigate whether professional legislatures’ capacity for partisan conflict—rather than for policy change or responsiveness—explains the apparent link between legislative capacity and ratings of general obligation bonds among the U.S. states. By measuring policy shifts directly via shifts in policy liberalism (Caughey and Warshaw 2017) and specific types of partisan and legislative staff resources, this study examines whether the value of maintaining control of a professional legislature—and legislative parties’ capacities to organize to fight for majority control of such legislatures—better explains the apparent connection between economic outcomes and legislative professionalism.

Author

• Jesse M. Crosson, Princeton University and Trinity University