The tenor of the Senate no longer relies on traditions of apprenticeship and courtesy. The modern reality is a highly party-polarized institution, encouraging intraparty loyalty and interparty discord. Senators’ behavior on roll-call votes and amendments exhibit this hyper-partisan culture, but that culture extends beyond voting behavior. Members' media activities, including communications with constituents and each other, are equally appealing venues to express excessive partisanship. New media technologies, such as Twitter, are extending this partisan game and punching a ticket for every member of the Senate. Twitter offers a low-cost alternative for members to express malcontent with an opposing party while signaling intra-party party support. In this paper, I tease out the extent to which a member’s party and leadership status affect their likelihood to engage in the partisan discourse that now spans social media. I introduce a unique dataset from the 112th Congress that catalogues six months of senatorial Twitter activity and find that minority party members and party leaders are more likely to name-call and express party loyalty. Twitter may be an alternative agenda space for minority interests that seek to alter the status quo and a public relations platform for party leaders who are tasked with shaping the debate. / text

Records membership on all congressional committees from the 80th to 102nd Congresses. Data file that corresponds with the hard copy version of Nelson's two-volume set Committees in the U.S. Congress, 1947-1992, CQ Press. Corrections of the data set to Charles Stewart at MIT.

Records membership on all congressional standing committees up to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. Data set still in progress. Please direct corrections of the data set to Charles Stewart at MIT

Records membership on all congressional committees for the periods covered in the study. Data set is updated periodically from the Congressional Record. Please report errors to Charles Stewart.

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Will it be inevitable that the systems in relating to politics and laws undergoing necessary reforms as the economies have been developing since the opening of reforms in China? How are the systems being reformed? What directions are there for reforms? The above questions are the motives for my study. This doctoral dissertation is divided into eight chapters. An ¡§introduction¡¨ is made in Chapter I which describes motives, purposes , methods and expected results of the study. Chapter II refers to the ¡§Discussion theories of the Electoral System of PCC¡¨. It is necessary to take a closer look at the theories on which the electoral system is based before getting to learn the electoral systems in mainland China. Therefore the four theories including ¡§People¡¦s Democratic Dictatorship¡¨, ¡§Combination of Legislation and Execution¡¨, ¡§Democratic Centralism¡¨, and ¡§Socialism Featured with Chinese Characteristics ¡¨ act as the basis for this study. Chapter III elaborates ¡§the development of the electoral system for pre- PCC period before PRC was established¡¨ First of all, the Farmers¡¦ Association is introduced followed by the electoral system for the representatives for the Meeting of Labor, Farmer and Soldier and the electoral system for Senators. Afterwards, the electoral systems for People¡¦s Representative Conference and Political Consultative Conference are described. In Chapter IV, ¡§the development of the electoral system for PCC after the establishment of PRC¡¨ is detailed. According to the modifications or stipulation of electoral laws in PRC, the development is divided into five stages: a. the period of early political establishment (or called: The Period of First Electoral law), b. transition period (or called: The Period of Second Electoral law), c. reforms in an early period (or called: The Period of First time to modify the electoral law ) d. reforms in a middle period (or called: The Period of Second time to modify the electoral law ), e. period being ruled by law (or called: The Period of third time to modify the electoral law ). Chapter V explains ¡§the transition of electoral system and its association with PCC functions¡¨. Three aspects including legislation, budgeting and auditing as will as arrangements of human resources entitled to PCC are analyzed to prove that the changes of an electoral system indeed influence PCC function. In Chapter VI, ¡§disadvantages of PCC electoral system: an analysis on electoral theories ¡¨ are discussed. The disadvantage of the electoral theories both in China and in the in the occident are analyzed. following discussing that has mainland China found its disadvantages shown from the electoral system? In Chapter VII, This chapter is divided into six sections: ¡§multi-candidate election¡¨, ¡§occupational representation election¡¨, ¡§quota for rural villages¡¨, ¡§proxy voting¡¨, finally, reviews on the Community Party association with electoral system, and also discussing concerning about military and compatriot of Taiwan residing in mainland China. The Conclusions are set forth in Chapter VIII. The findings, suggestions and related consequential studies are raised here. The writer considers that we have to study on the reforms of PCC first so as to further understand the situations of democratization in China. For studying the reforms of PCC, we have to find out what the electoral system of PCC in RPC is. It is expected that the progress of democratization in PRC and possible dilemmas encountered by it may be found in the process of the study.

Probe Into The Dilemmas of Democracy Congressional Reform: The Cases of California Congress and Taiwan Congress Abstract Among developed democracy countries, it's very popular to deliberate researches of the Congressional reform. All-embracing aspects for the congressional reform and researches, yet developed democracy countries are continuing to orientate trends for their reforms to achieve the best efficiency within the Congress. Nevertheless, although the Congress' systems break fresh ground by times, the Congress is regarded as an inefficient then spoiled government organization all the time. On one hand, this research probes into the dilemmas or straits for developed democracy countries; on the other hand, this confers on contradictions or difficulties between the congressional representative and professional efficacy in order to step them up. We hypothesize there seems to be a contradiction between congressional representative and specialty. As the researches of congressional reform become increasingly important, we can help to discover the problems and try to dissolve them. It hopes to improve the congress function and efficiency.

Central to the distributive theory is the idea that members of Congress can use strategic committee assignments to fund pork projects for their districts. Committees that are primarily constituency service based are considered most susceptible to pork barrel politics. The Public Works and Transportation Committee, in particular, has developed a reputation for distributing pork projects. Adler??s (2002) study of six committees found impressive evidence that members of certain committees are able to channel disproportionate benefits to their districts??the lone exception was the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Given the folklore about Public Works and ??pork,?? this result seems odd. In this study, I make two major adjustments to the research design. First, I isolate the dollars spent on committee programs that were not allocated by a formula. Formulas have prior built-in controls that are not subject to bargaining after the formula has been set, and thus are not illustrative of the pork process. Second, I expand the years studied (1983-1996) and analyze the data with a pooled cross-section/time series design, which better controls the potential effects of time on the distribution of federal funds. These modifications do not produce results to reconcile the conflict with congressional folklore, instead they question the generalizability of allocation decisions for constituency service committees.

When setting the agenda for policy change, does the president convince Congress to pay attention to an issue or vise versa? Does the level of influence vary by chamber in Congress? Scholars of American political institutions have long struggled over questions regarding the directionality of agenda setting influence. This paper examines presidential and congressional action on Social Security from 1946 to 2008 to see if one branch has a significant effect on the other in regard to placing an issue on the institutional agenda. Additionally, this paper considers how the two houses of Congress may differ at the agenda setting stage on an issue. Using Vector Autoregression, I test the directionality of agenda setting influence in a social policy area to get a better picture of agenda setting dynamics. / text