Bridging the Information Gap: Legislative Member Organizations in the U.S. & E.U.

1. Bridging the Information Gap:Legislative Member Organizationsin the U.S. & E.U. Nils Ringe University of Wisconsin, Madison Jennifer Nicoll Victor George Mason University

2. Motivating Observations & Questions • Why do legislators invest time and resources into forming and maintaining voluntary groups that provide few obvious benefits? • Legislators have an insatiable need for information. • Relationships between legislators may impact legislative decision making. • Existing institutions may not satisfy legislators’ needs. • Perhaps legislators need a flexible, information-based institution to satisfy their needs?

3. Theory: LMOs Create Networks LMOs create networks of weak, bridging ties. Information flows readily through the LMO network. LMOs are a point of access for outside groups.

4. How LMOs Differ from Parties and Committees • LMOs are voluntary, self-forming, diverse, and unrestricted.

5. Theory: Weak, Bridging Tie • Weak ties (Granovetter 1973, Burt 2000) • Tend to be bridging ties that span structural holes (Feld 1981; Burt 2000) • Inexpensive to create and maintain • A voluntary institution that creates weak, inexpensive relationships and access to information in legislatures is highly valuable to lawmakers.

6. Three Networks • Network of LMOs • Weak, bridging ties between legislators. • Leads to improved information flow across party/committee lines. • Network of the members of a single LMO • High density, high closure, high embeddedness. • Weak ties. • Network of the leaders of a single LMO • High density, high closure, high embeddedness. • Strong ties.

7. Hypothetical LMO Network

8. Empirical Expectations • LMOs help relationships develop. • Esp. weak ties that are inexpensive to create and maintain. • LMOs provide opportunities to bridge institutional cleavages. • LMOs provide valuable information to its members, at little cost.

9. Sources of Data • Expert Survey (for international data) • Conventional Quantitative Data • EP6, EP7--intergroups • Congress 109th, 110th, 111th --caucuses • Network Data (LMO memberships) • Interview Data • March 2009 – June 2010 • 86 respondents in Brussels and Washington

11. Descriptive Data

12. Caucus Proliferation

13. LMO Network Descriptives

14. Empirical Expectations • LMOs help relationships develop. • Esp. weak ties that are inexpensive to create and maintain. • LMOs provide opportunities to bridge institutional cleavages. • LMOs provide valuable information to its members, at little cost.

15. Building Relationships • 61 of 85 respondents mention that LMOs aid in establishing and/or maintaining relationships. • “[the caucus] becomes an incubator, not only for ideas, but for relationships. Not just any relationships, but relationships across the aisle.” • “The intergroups are a good chance to create friendships between political groups, between different countries.”

16. Weak & Inexpensive Ties-Lack of Opportunity • For most Legislators participation in LMOs is insufficient to create strong ties. • Events occur “sporadically.” • Attendance is fluid and irregular. • Legislators may rarely attend.

17. Empirical Expectations • LMOs help relationships develop. • Esp. weak ties that are inexpensive to create and maintain. • LMOs provide opportunities to bridge institutional cleavages. • LMOs provide valuable information to its members, at little cost.

18. Focal legislators in the EP

19. Evidence of Bridging • Constraint (Burt 1992) • the extent to which a person's network is concentrated in redundant contacts . • a lower constraint score indicates that an actor connects more people who would not otherwise be tied to one another. • H1: Caucus members have lower constraint scores than non-caucus members. • H2: MCs’ constraint scores are made lower by their participation in caucuses.

20. Testing “Constraint” Data: Count all “institutional ties” between every pair in our sample for all Congresses in which they served (going back to 89th Congress 1965). Only 5 MCs who join no caucuses, therefore no statistical difference in the constraint score between these 5 and all others. H1: not confirmed. Caucus members do have lower constraint scores than they would if they were not in any caucuses (p=0.01). H2: confirmed

21. Empirical Expectations • LMOs help relationships develop. • Esp. weak ties that are inexpensive to create and maintain. • LMOs provide opportunities to bridge institutional cleavages. • LMOs provide valuable information to its members, at little cost.

22. High Quality, Efficient Exchange of Information • Advocacy and Voice • “it’s just education and awareness” • Efficient Dissemination of information • “[Without the caucus] it would be more work to figure out who are the right people to contact, and probably wouldn’t get as big of a return.”

23. High Quality, Efficient Exchange of Information • Staff seek knowledge • “one of the reasons we joined is to sort of get updates, and get information.” • Bringing in Experts • “[joining caucuses] just kind of helps us maximize our resources when you have such a limited number of staff.”

24. Summary of Evidence LMOs help establish and maintain relationships—often those they wouldn’t otherwise have. LMOs are cheap. LMOs provide information to members. LMOs allow members to beless constrained.

25. Do LMOs Matter?

26. Do LMOs Matter? • LMO impact is indirect. • Transmission of information. • Getting/keeping items on the agenda. • Keeping contacts within and outside legislature. • When are LMOs influential? • When they’re active. • When they’re supported by outside groups. • When the co-chairs take an active interest.

28. Conclusions LMOs play an important, but indirect, role in lawmaking. LMOs provide a venue for building relationships and passing along information. These voluntary institutions solve an information-based collective action problem that committees and parties cannot.

29. Conclusions LMOs are cheap, and therefore flexible. Not as constrained by institutional rules. LMO ties are cross-cutting and allow for social bridges between legislators. [Not shown here] caucuses help connect legislators to outsiders who feed the groups with highly useful information.

30. Extra Slides

31. LMO Network Descriptives

32. Most Central Actors EP 6 EP 7

33. Most Central Actors 110th 111th

34. 109th CongressCaucus Membership Density =0.36

35. 110th CongressCaucus Membership Density =0.93

36. 109th CongressCaucus by Caucus Network Density =0.29 Density =6.54

37. 110th CongressCaucus by Caucus Network Density =0.5

38. 111th CongressCaucus by Caucus Network Density =0.49