How Are Politicians Informed? Witnesses and Information Provision in Congress

Pamela Ban, Ju Yeon Park, Hye Young You

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

How are politicians informed and who do politicians seek information from? The role of information has been at the center for research on legislative organizations but there is a lack of systematic empirical work on the information that Congress seeks to acquire and consider. To examine the information flow between Congress and external groups, we construct the most comprehensive dataset to date on 74,082 congressional committee hearings and 755,540 witnesses spanning 1960-2018. We show descriptive patterns of how witness composition varies across time and committee and how different types of witnesses provide varying levels of analytical information. We develop theoretical expectations for why committees may invite different types of witnesses based on committee intent, interbranch relations, and congressional capacity. Our empirical evidence shows how committees' partisan considerations can affect how much committees turn to outsiders for information and from whom they seek information.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)122-139
Number of pages18
JournalAmerican Political Science Review
Volume117
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 16 2023
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations

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