Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Promises to Keep?
- 2 Campaigns as Signals
- 3 Campaign Appeals and Legislative Activity
- 4 Mechanisms Underlying Promise Keeping
- 5 Promise Making and Promise Keeping on Defense and Environmental Issues
- 6 The Who, When, and Where of Follow-through
- 7 The Electoral Implications of Promise Keeping
- 8 Promises and Policy Making
- 9 Representation, Responsiveness, and the Electoral Connection
- References
- Index
1 - Promises to Keep?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Promises to Keep?
- 2 Campaigns as Signals
- 3 Campaign Appeals and Legislative Activity
- 4 Mechanisms Underlying Promise Keeping
- 5 Promise Making and Promise Keeping on Defense and Environmental Issues
- 6 The Who, When, and Where of Follow-through
- 7 The Electoral Implications of Promise Keeping
- 8 Promises and Policy Making
- 9 Representation, Responsiveness, and the Electoral Connection
- References
- Index
Summary
Do members of Congress follow through on the appeals they make in campaigns? In other words, do they keep their promises? These questions may be simple, but their answers lie at the heart of assessments of democratic legitimacy. In representative democracies, election campaigns are intended to serve as the central linchpin, providing a venue for debate about issues, educating citizens about the activities of their elected representatives, and informing legislators about the interests of their constituents. Campaigns are, as Riker (1996) argued, “a main point – perhaps the main point – of contact between officials and the populace over matters of public policy” (3). The existence of strong links between elections and governing is therefore one of the most fundamental prerequisites for accountability. In short, in healthy democracies, candidates in campaigns should provide voters with information about the issues and policies they will pursue in Congress, and, once in office, should follow through on these appeals.
The prevailing view among the public and many pundits, though, is that politics in the United States falls far short of this ideal. Instead, many believe that campaigns have little issue content and have devolved into nothing more than opportunities for candidates to launch personal attacks at one another. Moreover, the advantages of incumbency seem to free legislators from any pressures to be accountable for their past records or sincere about their future plans.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns , pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011