I situate this dissertation and its contributions at the edge of the literature on interest group political behavior and congressional responsiveness. In particular, I use new strategies and tools to study interest group influence. In the first essay, I find that a machine-learning text-analysis detects latent patterns in the frequency of lobbying by the telecommunications industry in 2015. Meanwhile, members of Congress primarily focus on healthcare and taxes when they discuss policy issues on social media. In the second essay, I measure the change in political behavior of interest groups by ideology after the surprise result of the 2016 presidential election. The evidence suggests there was an increase in political spending by ideologically polarized interest groups shortly after the election. Finally, the cornerstone of this dissertation evaluates the results of two field experiments measuring congressional responsiveness to issue advocacy with a non-profit, non-partisan political advocacy organization. Counter to expectations in the interest group literature, I find that members of Congress are responsive on social media to interest group requests on a low-salience, non-partisan issue. These findings have important implications for representation and responsiveness in the U.S. Congress by highlighting areas of research that need further study and deeper evaluation.

This dissertation, a collection of independent papers, explores the polarization of the United States Congress through the lens of primary elections, campaign finance, and party structures during a pivotal moment in American political history. Paper 1 focuses on the top two primary format and its potential in producing moderate candidates and legislators, while Paper 2 expounds on the deleterious consequences it poses for the party system as a whole, particularly in this modern era of both high polarization and high fragmentation. Paper 3 examines the Downsian median voter theorem from the perspective of primary election voters, asking if general election wins/losses beget the nomination of more ideological/moderate nominees next cycle. Ultimately, the article illustrates that the parties instead retain consistent records through both election wins and losses, linked to credibility concerns from position changes as well as the inability of members to disentangle from national party identities. Its companion paper, Paper 4, takes that Downsian question to elites in Washington, D.C. Through original interviews with twenty-three individuals including former members of Congress, leadership, congressional staff, and think tank scholars, I describe the electoral and legislative pressures that prevent officeholders from responding to their median voter, especially among those in swing districts most exposed to the risks of partisan behavior. Paper 5, the final paper, brings together the themes of those preceding it by analyzing the ways in which outside interference, specifically political action committees and more inclusive primary elections, propagates legislative caucus fragmentation and weakens official leadership. This work plays one minor role in providing prescriptive steps to improve and empower channels of dialogue in the U.S. legislative brancha - in spite of larger systemic sorting along geographical and partisan lines - and ensure the mediation of ideology between voters and their elected representatives results in policy solutions rather than gridlock.

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The Pentagon career of Charles E. Wilson, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense from 1953-1957, is a neglected, yet important, field of study for studentsof the Eisenhower Presidency. Therefore, a study of Wilson's controversial tenure as Secretary of Defense is necessary for at least three reasons. First, Wilson served as Secretary of Defense for four and a half years, more than twice as long as any of his predecessors. Only Robert McNamara, who administered the Defense Department from 1961-1967, served longer than Wilson as the chief Pentagon official. Furthermore, Wilson became the Defense Department's civilian leader at a time when the agency was in its infancy.. His longevity as Secretary of Defense enabled him to make a significant impact upon the government's largest operation.Second, Wilson left a considerable store of personal papers, which are conveniently arranged at Anderson College in Anderson, Indiana. A serious examination of those materials gives one an additional measure of insight into the workings and concern of the Eisenhower Administration.Third, Wilson deserves study because he was a major figure in an important Administration. He has, however, been overlooked by virtually every chronicler of the Eisenhower Presidency. The prevailing view of Wilson maintains that he was an able administrator in the automobile industry, but woefully miscast as a political figure. That interpretation may not be totally wrong, but it is incomplete.More significantly, a study of Wilson enables the historian to challenge two views of the orthodox interpretation of the Eisenhower years. The first view maintains that the figures in the Eisenhower Cabinet were dull, unimaginative representatives of the business community. Indeed, one writer characterized the President and his advisers as "the bland leading the bland." That statement is misleading, at least in reference to Wilson.Charles E. Wilson was a wealthy industrialist, but he was hardly bland. He was many things; robust, blunt, energetic, sometimes simplistic, sometimes politically unskillful, but never bland. Furthermore, he possessed a down-to-earth intelligence which enabled him to direct the government's largest agency for almost a half-decade.A second view of the orthodox interpretation contends that the Eisenhower years were largely devoid of partisanship and a sense of political purpose. That, too, is misleading, especially regarding the issue of national defense. An examination of the debates over defense policy during those years reveals a high degree of partisanship with Wilson Persistently defending the Administration programs while the political opposition consistently sought to alter them. Furthermore, Wilson and his Democratic critics in the Senate were hardy rivals, with influential Democrats calling for Wilson's resignation at regular intervals. Wilson's encounters with Richard Russell, Lyndon B. Johnson, Stuart Symington and others may have lacked the drama of Harry Truman's lambasting of the "do-nothing, good-for-nothing" 80th congress during the 1948 presidential campaign. Yet the encounter between Wilson and his Senate critics were genuinely partisan and both Administration and Congress fought tooth-and-nail for political victory.I should like to state the purpose of this study. It is not an attempt at a biography of Wilson or even a summary of his career at the Pentagon. Instead, I have tried to examine the theme of conflict between Wilson and his Senate critics. The emphasis, and hopefully not the bias, is on Wilson's role as the Secretary of Defense in advocating his policies before skeptical groups of Senators. Hopefully, the study will succeed in a larger objective of shedding additional light on the inner workings of the Eisenhower Administration.

One unusual aspect of recent American foreign policy is the Tom Connally Amendment, the eight words appended to provision "b" of Senate Resolution 196 (1946): "as determined by the United States of America." In its final form the complete reservation provides that the International Court of Justice shall not have jurisdiction over anything the United States considers essentially domestic.Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon introduced Senate Resolution 196 (1946). The italicized Amendment to the Resolution was offered by the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Tom Connally from Texas. The so-called Connally Amendment to Senate Resolution 196 (1946), pertaining to Article 36 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, reserved the right of the United States to deny jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice in cases involving the United States' self-interest. The reservation is self judging: a party to a justiciable dispute reserves the right to say whether or not a case exists.Using Senate Resolution 196 (1946), this study attempted to show how governmental policy and public opinion changed from a militant ideological-isolationist position before World War II to one which advocated the United States' taking a leading role in post-war planning for peace and security. This change in public opinion and the leadership of the popular President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration forced Congress to reassess the traditional American foreign policy of unilateralism.This study of Senate Resolution 196 showed how Congress, and particularly the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under the leadership of Chairman Tom Connally, tried to assert itself and take a leadership role in the Senate in the development of post-war planning. This study also shows the difficulties that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee encountered in taking a leadership role. The Committee and its leadership were under constant pressure. In the end the Committee's leadership role was successfully challenged by its own chairman, who, ironically, worked so hard to build the Committee's leadership role in the Senate of the United States Congress.

This thesis explores the relationships between the demographic characteristics of a Representative's Congressional District and his voting behavior on defense expenditure bills. The study covers 433 congressional districts, and includes the interaction of eight demographic characteristics in each district with the voting behavior of the Representative based on five major defense bills. The primary purpose of the thesis is to determine if there is a relationship between the characteristics of the constituency and the manner in which the Representative votes on defense bills. Special attention is focused on the supposition that if a military installation or prime defense contractor is located in a congressional district, its presense will induce a Representative to vote for continued if not increased defense expenditures.