Book Reviews : Congressmen's Voting Decisions. By JOHN W. KINGDON. (New York: Harper and Row, 1973. Pp. ix, 313. $8.95.)
| Author | Bruce M. Haston |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297402700421 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
749
results
would
have
been
if
different
personalities,
conditions,
etc.,
had
prevailed.
This
ultimately
leads
to
the
question
of
how
much
the reader
can
learn
about
the
legislative
process
in
sessions
other
than
the
89th
Congress.
Denison
University
EMMETT
H.
BUELL,
JR.
Congressmen’s
Voting
Decisions.
By
JOHN
W.
KINGDON.
(New
York:
Harper
and
Row,
1973.
Pp.
ix,
313.
$8.95.)
Congressmen’s
Voting
Decisions
is
one
of
several
recent
works
attempting
to
provide
insight
into
decision
making
by
interviewing
the
decision-makers
themselves.
To
evaluate
what
forces
and
factors
influence
a
congressman’s
vote,
John
Kingdon
interviewed
a
stratified
sample
of
U.S.
representatives
in
the
91st
Congress
(1969)
to
assess
what
influenced
their
floor
vote
on
fifteen
different
issues
(foreign
policy,
economic,
social
welfare
and
civil
rights) .
Two
major
features
distinguish
this
book from
many
previous
studies
on
congressional
decision-making.
In
contrast
to
such
studies
as
Fenno’s
Power
of
the
Purse,
Kingdon’s
focus
is
on
the
final
act
-
the
decision
to
vote
a
particular
way.
The
author
correlated
the
immediacy
of
seven
dependent
variables
(constituency,
fellow
congressmen,
party
leadership
and
ranking
committee
members,
interest
groups,
the
administration
and
executive
branch,
congressional
staff,
and media
and
other
reading)
to
the
vote
decision.
That
is,
rather
than
asking
a
congressman
why
he
votes
as
he
does,
or
developing
a
classification
of
voting
by
ideology,
or
associating
one
congressman’s
vote
with
that
of
another,
Kingdon
asks
(as
soon
as
possible
after
the
floor
vote
has
been
taken),
&dquo;Why
did
you
vote
as
you
did
in
relation
to
decision
X?&dquo;
Although
some
may
quibble
with
some
of
Kingdon’s
categories,
his
open-ended
interview
approach
is
more
revealing
than
many
pre-
vious
studies
which
treat
the
voting
act
as
the
dependent
variable.
Kingdon
also
examines
such
variables
as
a
congressman’s
length
of
service
in
the
House,
geo-
graphical
area,
party,
type
of
district
and
its
degree
of
competitiveness,
salience
of
the
issue,
and
position
on
the
liberal-conservative
spectrum
to
determine
their
im-
pact
on
each
of
the
seven
variables
he
has
isolated
as
possible
influences
on
a
vot-
ing
decision.
Although
the
reader
may
consider
some
findings
little
more
than
reaffirmation
of
those
contained
in
other
studies,
several
of
the
author’s
conclusions
directly
challenge
widely-held
notions
about
congressional
decision-making.
For
example,
Kingdon’s
study
shows
the
importance
of
party
leadership,
ranking
committee
members,
or
the
executive
branch,
at
least
for
members
of
the
Ninety-First
Con-
gress,
is
low
in
the
constellation
of
factors
resulting
in
a
vote
decision.
Thus,
if
the
actors
responded
truthfully
to
Kingdon’s
in-depth
interviews
and
if
subsequent
studies
were
to
indicate
similar
findings,
then
some
reinterpretation
of
some
aspects
of
congressional
decision
making
is
in
order.
The
second
distinguishing
feature
of
this
work
is
summarized
in
the
last
four
chapters
of
the
book
(Decision
Problems
and
Information,
The
Consensus
Mod
of
Decisions,
Proconsensus
Process,
and
Structural
Decision
Features),
especially
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