Agenda Control and Electoral Success in the U.S. House

Cartel theory is based on the premise that there is an essential link between party in government and party in elections. Specifically, that theory---and much subsequent legislative research---rests on the assumption that agenda control is the essential mechanism used to manage the party brand; what does and does not get on the legislative agenda determines some portion of the electoral reward or punishment shared by all majority party members. Yet, an essential implication of the theory has never been tested: does successful legislative agenda control improve the electoral fortunes of majority party members? This letter tests this implication. Searching over 160,000 model specifications, we fail to find robust support for the hypothesis that successful agenda control yields electoral benefits to majority members in the US House. While this surprising result may not be definitive---and falls far short of toppling Cartel theory---it raises important questions regarding the mechanisms incentivizing legislative agenda control.

卡特尔理论（Cartel theory）的立论基础是，执政政党与选举政党之间存在本质关联。具体而言，该理论及后续诸多立法研究均基于一项假设：议程控制是维系政党品牌的核心机制；能否将议题纳入立法议程，将决定多数党全体成员所获选举奖惩的一部分份额。然而，该理论的一项核心推论从未得到检验：成功的立法议程控制，是否能提升多数党议员的选举运势？本研究即对该推论展开检验。我们对超过16万种模型设定进行了检索分析，却未发现足够稳健的证据支持以下假说：成功的议程控制可为美国众议院的多数党议员带来选举收益。尽管这一出人意料的结论尚不具备定论性，也远不足以推翻卡特尔理论，但它却提出了有关激励立法议程控制的核心机制的重要疑问。