A Test of Ideological Bias in House Subcommittees, 1979-2000

Committees play a pivotal role in the legislative process. Since the mid-1970s, subcommittees have been important in the lawmaking process as well. Given this enhanced performance, the membership of subcommittees can be a key element in the direction that the legislative process takes. In this article, we develop and test a set of expectations regarding the ideological makeup of subcommittees. Resting firmly on the shoulders of Cox and McCubbins (1993), we assert that those subcommittees with particularized interests will possess memberships which are ideologically distinguishable from their parent committees, while those that affect a wider range of interests will have contingents ideologically indistinguishable from their parent committees. Employing a Monte Carlo simulation technique on ideological composition data of members of subcommittees of the House Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees from the 96th to 106th Congresses, we expect to find that the occurrence of subcommittee outliers are generally consistent (with some notable exceptions) in their direction over time. Additionally, we test the hypothesis that there were no significant changes in the mix of subcommittee outliers from the 103rd to the 104th Congresses and beyond. We find that the change in partisan control of the House resulted in few shifts in outliers.     

INTERREGIONAL WAGE DIFFERENTIALS: AN EQUILIBRIUM PERSPECTIVE*

ABSTRACT This paper empirically analyzes two competing explanations for observed interregional wage differentials among full-time U.S. workers: (1) differences in the average levels of market valued labor characteristics, and (2) differences in rates of return to the characteristics. Hedonic wage equations are estimated for broad U.S. regions using detailed measures of human capital, work environment, and personal attributes collected by a national random sample mail survey. Statistical tests reveal little tendency for interregional structural shifts in the wage equations estimated, an outcome which rests on the inclusion of important, but seldom measured, wage determining variables.     

Recursive Algorithm for Determination of Proximal (Thiessen) Polygons in Any Metric Space

A new and recursive algorithm for determining proximal polygons is based on quadtree concepts. The algorithm can use any distance metric, and produces a quadtree of the image of the proximal polygons. This can be converted to vector form, or be incorporated directly into a quadtree-based geographic information system, in order to solve a number of closest-point problems. The algorithm can also produce the Delaunay triangulation, which is the dual of the proximal polygons. Empirically, the running time of the algorithm is proportional to the number of centers raised to the 1.6 power.     

Sovereign Power,Biopower, and the Reach of the West in an Age of Diaspora‐Centred Development

Why at this particular historical moment has there emerged a rousing interest in the potential contribution of diasporas to the development of migrant sending states and why is this diaspora turn so pervasive throughout the global South? The central premise of this paper is that the rapid ascent of diaspora‐centred development cannot be understood apart from historical developments in the West's approach to governing international spaces. Once predicated upon sovereign power, rule over distant others is increasingly coming to depend upon biopolitical projects which conspire to discipline and normalize the conduct of others at a distance so as to create self‐reliant and resilient market actors. We argue that an age of diaspora‐centred development has emerged as a consequence of this shift and is partly constitutive of it. We develop our argument with reference to Giorgio Agamben's “Homo Sacer” project and in particular the theological genealogy of Western political constructs he presents in his book The Kingdom and the Glory (2011). We provide for illustration profiles of three projects which have played a significant role in birthing and conditioning the current diaspora option: the World Bank's Knowledge for Development Programme (K4D); the US‐based International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA); and the EU/UN Joint Migration and Development Initiative Migration4Development project (JMDI‐M4D). Drawing upon economic theology, we make a case for construing these projects as elements of the West's emerging Oikonomia after the age of empire.