Perpetuating the Pork Barrel Policy Subsystems and American Democracy

About this book

Perpetuating the Pork Barrel details the policy subsystems – links among members of Congress, interest groups, program beneficiaries, federal and subnational government agencies – that blanket the American political landscape. Robert Stein and Kenneth Bickers have constructed a new data base detailing federal outlays to Congressional districts for each federal program, and use it to examine four myths about the impact of policy subsystems on American government and democratic practice. These include the myth that policy subsystems are a major contributor to the federal deficit; that once created, federal programs grow inexorably and rarely die; that to garner support for their programs, subsystem actors seek to universalize the geographic scope of program benefits; and that the flow of program benefits to constituencies in congressional districts ensures the re-election of legislators.

Contents

Part I
1. Policy subsystems and the pork barrel

Part II
2. The Programmatic expansion of US domestic spending
3. The geographic scope of domestic spending: a test of the universalism thesis

Part III
4. A portfolio theory of policy subsystems
5. PAC contributions and the distribution of domestic assistance programs
6. Policy subsystem adaptability and resilience in the Reagan period
7. Congressional elections and the pork barrel
8. Policy subsystems in practice and democratic theory

Appendices

Customer Reviews