(iPoster) Representational Infrastructure: Local Office Allocation and Decision-Making

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Legislative Studies & Authoritarian Demands, Compliance, and the Politics of Protest
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Legislative Studies

Abstract

What factors influence the decision-making process for local office allocation? Rivers and Fiorina (1989) highlighted that legislators are attuned to the needs of their constituents when making such decisions. Previous research suggests that the provision of services and casework stems from interactions with specific constituencies and that a legislator’s physical presence within the state may foster greater favorability. However, this work has overlooked the significance of infrastructure in delivering constituent services, the role of demand, and the outcomes of these decisions. In this project, I use an original dataset of every Senate local office from the 106th to the 118th Congress, along with survey data from the Cooperative Election Study, to explore these issues. My findings indicate that constituent demand influences the varying amount of offices in a state, and notably, that an increase in the number of offices is associated with decreased approval ratings among constituents. These results underscore the critical role of constituent demand in legislators’ local office allocation decisions and reveal that enhanced infrastructure does not lead to increased support from constituents.

Author

• Ryan Bookstein, University of Maryland