Karol
Does Constituency Size Affect Elected Officials’ Trade Policy Preferences?
David Karol
[email protected]
Assistant Professor
Charles and Louise Travers
Department of Political Science
210 Barrows Hall
UC-Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
p: (510) 642-4648
f: (510) 642-9515
I presented earlier versions of this paper at the 2003 Annual Meetings of the Midwest
Political Science Association, the American Political Science Association, and the Center
for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton. I thank Larry Bartels, Kathy Bawn,
Ben Bishin, Paul Frymer, John Geer, Mark Kayser, Bruce Oppenheimer, Wendy Schiller,
John Zaller and three anonymous reviewers.
Karol
Abstract
Scholars have long argued that Presidents are less protectionist than Congress and
Senators less so than Representatives due to their larger constituencies. Yet until now this
theory has escaped scrutiny. I argue that it is based on a misguided view of trade policy
as distributive politics. I show via a series of tests that it is untenable. Unlike their
differences in constituency size, the pro-trade leanings of the Presidency and Senate are
postwar phenomena. Even now state size is unrelated to Senators' votes on trade. In tests
pooling legislators from both Houses, chamber membership predicts votes while
constituency size generally does not. Senators are even less protectionist than
Representatives with identical constituencies.
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Scholars have long argued that electoral systems affect policy outcomes. A
familiar claim is that the division of a polity into many constituencies makes officials
parochial and reliant on “special interests.” One widely-accepted implication of this
theory is that large constituencies insulate officials from protectionist lobbies and
promote freer trade. The claim is simple; larger constituencies are more diverse, meaning
that a smaller share of local firms and residents will benefit from a given tariff. Thus,
scholars argue, elected officials from larger constituencies will feel less pressure to
protect any particular sector than their colleagues from smaller ones. Legislators elected
from small constituencies will join protectionist coalitions for the sake of sectors that are
locally prominent, much as they vote for “pork-barrel” bills as long as their pet projects
are funded. The smaller the constituency,the narrower the interest that may determine the
legislator’s vote; parochialism produces protectionism. Thus branches of government
elected on different bases within the same polity may represent interests differently and
diverge on trade policy as a result.
The U.S. case seemingly supports this theory. Presidents are consistently less
protectionist than the Senate. The Senate is in turn less protectionist than the House.
These institutional disagreements over trade policy are longstanding and do not stem
from any particular configuration of partisan control of the White House and Capitol Hill.
In 1997 Clinton’s fast-track authority bid won 69 Senators’ votes, yet died in the House,
despite the similar size of the Republican majorities in the two chambers. In 1999 a steel
quota bill won almost two-thirds support in the House, but only 43 Senators favored even
debating the plan which Clinton had promised to veto. In 2002 two-thirds of the Senate
voted to give Bush “Trade Promotion Authority” even though Democrats were in the
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majority. Yet the result in the GOP-controlled House was long in doubt and he prevailed
there by only one vote. Similarly, in 2005 the battle for approval of the DR-CAFTA Free
Trade Agreement was far tougher in the House than it was in the Senate.
Such gaps matter, even when they are bridged; the tough fights in the House on
NAFTA, TPA and DR-CAFTA led to concessions protecting key industries to secure
majorities in that chamber. In addition, the assumption that the branches of government
have predictable relative positions on trade issues is built into the framework of U.S.
policy. Since 1934 the largely successful effort to reduce barriers to trade has proceeded
via Congressional delegation of authority to the President, a strategy that presumes that
he will be at least as supportive of continued liberalization as Congress.
Yet despite the persistence and importance of intercameral and interbranch
differences on trade policy their causes are poorly understood. Claims that variation in
constituency size explains them stem from a view of trade policy as distributive or “porkbarrel” politics. This understanding is widely shared, but based on dubious premises.
These include the assumptions that there is a clear, constituency-induced preference on
trade policy that elected officials will represent regardless of party affiliation, that this
position is determined chiefly by sectoral concerns and that all of the politically-relevant
sectors are protectionist. Each of these premises is dubious. Combined, they grossly
mischaracterize trade politics in the United States.
However, the dominant view, bolstered by the differences observed between the
positions of the President, Senate and House, has escaped empirical scrutiny until now. In
fact the theory that support for protectionism is inversely related to constituency size
finds no support from close study of Congressional behavior. Below I show that, unlike
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differences in constituency size, intercameral and interbranch gaps on trade issues are
recent, state size fails to predict votes on trade in the Senate and Senators are more freetrading than Representatives controlling for population, even when their constituencies
are identical.
Thus the theory that larger constituencies render elected officials less protectionist
has no empirical support. The inter-cameral and inter-branch differences evident on trade
issues are real and important, but the standard view as to their source can no longer be
accepted. The findings presented here highlight the need for a better explanation for interbranch and inter-cameral differences on trade policy.
Existing Theory
Scholars’ have long explained interbranch policy conflict by asserting that the
President’s national constituency makes him more attuned to “the public interest”, while
Congress represents “special interests” (Wilson 1908,Truman 1951, Sundquist 1981, Moe
1990, Miller 1993). Relatedly, students of political economy often identify free trade with
“the public interest” that protectionist lobbies subvert. Thus they use constituency size to
explain why Presidents are less protectionist than Congresses (Baldwin 1985, Haggard
1988, Krasner 1978, Lake 1988, Lohmann and O’Halloran 1994, Milner and Rosendorff
1996, Pastor 1980, Schiller 1999).1 Scholars also assert that constituency size differences
account for the fact that the Senate is less protectionist than the House (Bailey, Goldstein
and Weingast 1997, Fortier and Ornstein 2003, Gilligan 1997, Irwin and Kroszner 1999,
Keech and Pak 1995, Magee, Brock and Young 1989, Rogowski 1987,2002).
1
McGillivray (2004,77) however,notes that the Electoral College gives Presidents an
incentive to favor some parts of the country at the expense of others on trade policy.
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Baldwin (1985,16) holds that “Since senators generally represent more populous
and industrially diversified political units than House members, it is less likely that the
proportion of workers employed in import injured industries will be so high that a senator
is forced to adopt a protectionist posture.” Baker (1995,228) explains Senators’ support
for NAFTA by noting that they "represent larger and more diverse constituencies than
House members.” Rogowski (1987,208) finds it “almost self-evident” that large districts
offer “insulation” from “sectoral” pressure.
Yet the theory that smaller constituencies foster protectionism rests on dubious
claims that trade policy is best understood as “distributive” or pork-barrel politics. In
distributive analyses (Schaatschneider 1935, Truman 1951,Lowi 1964, Rogowski 1987,
Austen-Smith and Wright 1994, Lohmann and O’Halloran 1994, Nielson 2003) each
district seeks tariffs on its products. Larger districts will be more diverse and gain less
from any particular tariff. Thus a chamber elected from large constituencies will be less
protectionist than one chosen from smaller districts.
Since the same amount of “pork” may make a bigger impression in a smaller
district the claim that an inverse relationship exists between constituency size and
orientation toward distributive politics is plausible.2 Yet trade politics in the
contemporary U.S. are not marked by diffuse costs and concentrated benefits flowing
only to protectionists. Lobbies exist on both sides of the issue, making pork-barrel
2
Lee and Oppenheimer (1999) find that Senators from smaller states are more likely to
serve on “constituency” committees and focus on bringing “particularized benefits” to
their states than their large-state colleagues, sometimes by “holding out” on key bills until
they receive a side payment for their states.
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analogies problematic.3 Most trade scholars assume that some lobbies will seek freer
trade, even if this policy is "underprovided" due to the disorganization of consumers.
Rogowski (1989) holds that owners of a locally abundant factor of production, be it land,
labor or capital, will seek liberalization. Gilligan (1997), Irwin and Kroszner (1999) and
Magee, Brock and Young (1989) argue that both labor and capital in a given industry will
agree on trade issues, with some sectors favoring liberalization. Hiscox (2002) detects
both factor and sector based cleavages. Karol (2000), Shoch (2001) and Milner and
Judkins (2004) find that party remains crucial and may mediate factor effects as
Democrats give more weight to the concerns of unions and Republicans to those of
business. This may explain the frequent disagreement on trade between Senators of
different parties from the same state. While such Senators share a “geographical
constituency” (Fenno 1978), in practice they will be responsive to different groups when
forced to choose between them on trade policy.
We need not settle these debates. Recognizing that lobbies oppose as well as seek
protectionist policies implies that, unlike a highway bill, a trade measure cannot have
“something for everyone.” Thus pork-barrel models fundamentally misrepresent trade
politics. If a given protectionist lobby will be strongest in certain small districts the same
should be true of pro-trade groups. A chamber with smaller constituencies should thus
include not only “high-demanders” of various tariffs, but staunch free traders as well.
3
Note that Lowi (1964) argued that already in the postwar years trade policy had ceased
to be distributive while Pincus (1977,181) doubts that trade politics were primarily
distributive even in the antebellum period since “Southern planters and Northern
merchants were active in opposition” to tariffs.
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Given the diversity of larger constituencies, a chamber elected from sizeable districts
should include more cross-pressured members and fewer sure votes for either side. The
distribution of preferences in the two chambers should have different variances, but
comparable medians. Within a body elected from constituencies of varying sizes like the
Senate, those from small states should be more extreme, while those from larger ones
should be more moderate.4
It is true that a distributive approach does not necessarily imply that all local
interests are protectionist. Yet to the extent that localized pro-trade groups such as exportoriented firms are taken into account the theory that small constituencies promote
protectionism is undermined. In practice scholars claiming that smaller constituencies
inhibit freer trade overwhelmingly assume parochialism promotes protectionism and
ignore pro-trade lobbies.5
Not only are the premises underlying the dominant view shaky, but empirical
support for it is underwhelming as well. No consensus exists in the cross-national studies
of the effects of electoral institutions on trade policy. Rogowski (1987) and Nielson
4
Brady and Bailey (1998) find voting on trade issues less partisan among Senators from
homogenous states. Local concerns pull them away from the party lines hewed to by their
colleagues from more diverse states. The claim that diversity does not produce support
for freer trade is consistent with their findings, although they do not make it.
5
Of course legislators are responsive to industries located in their constituencies and
interests seeking protection are indeed better organized than those who benefit from
trade, given the passivity of consumers. However, it does not follow from this that the
protectionist side of the debate will be relatively stronger in smaller constituencies.
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(2003) find that larger constituencies and proportional representation yield greater
openness to trade, yet Mansfield and Busch (1995) and Rogowski and Kayser (2002)
reach the opposite conclusion while Grofman and Gray (2000) report null findings.
However, most scholars focus on the American case where the well-known
relative positions of the Presidency, Senate and House on trade issues seemingly bolster
the dominant view. Yet even here there is room for doubt since there have been no
attempts to test its logical implications at the micro-level, i.e. learning whether Senators’
trade positions are a function of state size or if Representatives who represent entire states
vote the same way as the Senators with whom they share a constituency.
Data and Tests
Below I subject the prevailing perspective to a series of tests. First I consider the
relative positions of Congress vis-a-vis the President and the House contrasted with the
Senate on trade issues. A pattern rooted in institutional differences as old as the
Constitution should be evident from the start. So I track interbranch and intercameral
differences on trade policy since 1789. I then assess the effect of state population on trade
policy voting in the Senate. I pool votes from both chambers when legislators in both
Houses of Congress considered the same text. This permits a comparison of the effects of
constituency size and office on key votes. Finally, I exploit a “natural experiment” by
comparing Representatives and Senators with identical constituencies.
If the traditional view that constituency size explains interbranch and intercameral
differences on trade policy is correct Presidents should have been consistently less
protectionist than Congress, and the Senate less so than the House throughout U.S.
history. Within the Senate, those from larger states should be more free-trading than
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those from smaller ones. In a pooled sample of Senators and Representatives
constituency size should predict MCs' votes, while chamber membership should not.
Finally, Representatives-at-Large and Senators with whom they share identical
constituencies should agree on trade issues.
I turn first to interbranch differences. Since 1932 all presidents have indeed been
more supportive of freer trade than the Congresses with which they served. Yet earlier in
U.S. history, trade politics were highly partisan. Party affiliation trumped institutional
position as a predictor of politicians’ trade policy stands. As a result, Presidents were
often more protectionist than Congress, especially when the Chief Executive was a
Republican (or a Whig) and Democrats controlled Capitol Hill (Schnietz 1994, Bailey,
Goldstein and Weingast 1997).
Space limitations preclude discussion of every President’s position on every trade
bill. Yet working backward from FDR, it is evident that many Chief Executives took a
more protectionist stand than one or both of the Houses of Congress with which they
served. GOP Presidents Hoover and Taft vetoed tariff-reducing bills passed by
Democratic Congresses.6 Republican Benjamin Harrison opposed tariff reductions passed
by the Democratic House, which died in the Senate. Although a Democrat, James
6
"Hoover vetoes Dem bill: message to Cong cites 4 major objections." New York Times
May 12,1932 1:8, "Taft Vetoes Farmers Free List Bill." New York Times August 9,1911,
4: 3:2, "HR Adopts Sen Amendment to Cotton Tariff Bill with Cuts in Steel, Chem other
Duties." New York Times August 22,1911 3:3 "Taft Vetoes Cotton Bill." New York Times
August 23,1911 “Taft to Veto Metals Tariff Bill." August 13,1912 3:1 "Taft Warns
Against Lifting Duty on Sugar." New York Times November 11,1912 9:1
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Buchanan still had protectionist leanings. Congress refused his request for higher tariffs
until Southern legislators left Washington (Klein 1962, 331-345, Stanwood (1903) Vol. II
p.118-126). Before the rise of the Republican Party the Whigs were the chief advocates
of protectionism. From 1849-1853 two Whig Presidents, Zachary Taylor and Millard
Fillmore, served with Democratic Congresses. In their Annual Messages to Congress
these Chief Executives pleaded without success for tariff increases to protect industry.
James Monroe did the same (Ammon 1971, 463, 512). In 1816 Congress passed a lower
tariff than Madison had sought (Stanwood 1903, 139, 155). Concluding the list of
relatively protectionist Presidents,Washington, who endorsed his Treasury Secretary
Alexander Hamilton’s protectionist “Report on Manufactures”, might also be cited.
Of course earlier in U.S. history there were also Presidents more free-trading than
the Congresses with which they served. Two prominent examples are Grover Cleveland
who proposed greater tariff reductions than Congress would enact and Woodrow Wilson
who vetoed the so-called “Emergency Tariff” bill shortly before leaving office. Simply
put, there was no distinct “Presidential position” on trade policy for most of U.S. history.
Rather, the free-trading Presidency is a modern phenomenon.
[Figure One about Here]
Turning to an assessment of intercameral differences over time, Figure One shows
the percentage of Senators supporting a liberalizing bill or opposing a protectionist one
minus the analogous percentage of Representatives. Positive values for a given bill
indicate that the Senate was more free-trading, negative ones that it was more
protectionist. The chart runs from 1820, when recorded votes were first cast in both
Houses on what is widely seen as a protectionist bill, until 2005. Some votes differ
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slightly in form, e.g. a cloture motion in the Senate vs. a vote on passage in the House,
but all concern the same text. I exclude cases in which one chamber passed a bill by voice
vote, those in which trade is mixed with other salient issues and those on which more
than 95% of both Houses agreed. Fifty-eight cases remain. All are listed in the appendix.
Figure One shows that the Senate’s status as the more free-trading chamber is a
recent condition. Except for the case of the 1990 textile bill, the Senate has been less
protectionist than the House since 1949. Yet before then the Senate-House difference was
often negative, i.e. the Senate was sometimes the more protectionist body.7 Lake
(1988,46) holds that in the 19th Century, “The Senate was traditionally more protectionist
than the House, even though economic interests tend to be more concentrated in the
latter.” The Senate dealt some of the greatest blows to “low tariff” forces, including the
frustration of Grover Cleveland’s “tariff reform” plans in 1894 and the bidding up of the
Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930.
Historically, party affiliation strongly predicted politicians’ stand on trade and
institutional location was a secondary factor at best. Depending on party control, the
Presidency, the Senate or the House could all be the protectionists’ stronghold (Schnietz
1994, Bailey, Goldstein and Weingast 1997). Thus the Senate’s relatively free-trading
stand is, like the Presidency’s, a postwar development.
7
Arguably, Senators did not have larger constituencies than Representatives before 1913,
as they were elected by state legislators. Yet by this logic Senators from states with more
than the median number of electoral votes have larger constituencies than the President.
In any case, 1913 and the years prior to it, when some states began electing Senators
directly de facto, is not a breakpoint in the time series.
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The consistent relative positions of the Presidency and the Senate vis-à-vis the
House on trade issues evident in recent decades thus postdate than the constituency size
differences said to produce them by more than 150 years. This chronology alone calls
into question the prevailing view.
Yet perhaps the importance of constituency size has increased for some reason in
recent decades and now really does affect elected officials’ positions on trade issues. To
explore that possibility I examine Senate voting during the postwar era. Prevailing theory
strongly implies that Senators from larger states will be less protectionist. Yet this
ubiquitous claim has gone untested until now.
[Table One about Here]
Table One displays logistic regression estimates of the effect of state population
on sixteen important Senate roll calls. I focus on Senators because the variation in the
size of their constituency is great while differences in size among districts in the House of
Representatives are minimal. These cases comprise the votes on trade issues included in
the entire Congressional Quarterly “Key Votes” series from 1945-2005. I code the votes
so that a positive coefficient means that as state size increases so does the probability that
Senators will vote for freer trade. In order to avoid giving too much weight to a handful
of states, I use the log of population size.8 This does not alter the results substantially.
As Table One shows, the relationship between state size and Senators' votes on
trade issues is significant in only four of sixteen cases and in two of these the sign is
“wrong” according to the dominant view. In 1958 those from larger states were more
8
Results of analyses using unlogged state population differed very little from those
reported here for the logged variable.
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likely to oppose allowing Congress to override the Tariff Commission and in 1994 they
were more apt to support U.S. accession to the W.T.O. Yet Senators from larger states
were also more likely to support the Textile-Copper-Footwear tariff bill in 1985 and to
oppose granting China Most-Favored Nation status in 1991. In the twelve remaining
cases state size was not a significant predictor of Senators’ votes on trade issues. These
results undercut the theory that larger constituencies orient officials toward freer trade.
To insure that such a relationship is not obscured by intervening variables I
present multivariate analyses of the same votes below including controls for Senators’
party, coded as one for Republicans and a zero otherwise, the weight of merchandise and
farm exports in a state’s economy, the strength of unions in its labor force and the
percentage employed in key import-competing sectors: Textiles and Metals. Trade
politics has historically been seen as a venue for “sectional” conflict (Trubowitz 1998) so
I include a dummy variable, South, indicating whether the Senator represented a Southern
state. Finally, since term length could explain House-Senate differences, with Senators
temporarily shielded from voters being more free-trading, I add a dummy variable, Term
Up, indicating whether a Senator’s term expires at the election following a given vote. 9
[Table Two about Here]
Table Two summarizes the results of this investigation. The key finding is that
state population is significant in even fewer cases than it was in the bivariate analyses. In
the multivariate models population is no longer a significant predictor of opposition to a
protectionist reform of the tariff commission in 1958. GOP, the party dummy, is the only
9
On the 1949,1955,1962 and 1987 votes all Senators from one party voted the same way,
making the model impossible to estimate. Thus I exclude these cases from Table Two.
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variable that is significant in most of the cases. As Keech and Pak (1995), Karol (2000)
and Shoch (2001) lead us to expect, until the early 1970s Republican Senators were more
apt to be protectionist, while since then they have been relatively free-trading. Thus while
the sign on the party variable has changed, it remains the most consistent predictor of
Senators’ votes on trade issues. This is another reason to doubt the applicability of
distributive models, since pork-barrel politics is generally considered a bipartisan affair.
Other control variables measuring the importance of specific industries or the
strength of exporters were each significant in a minority of cases. After the party dummy,
the exports variable is the most successful, being significantly and positively associated
with votes for liberalization in three cases and almost reaches that level in a fourth. The
coefficient for the variable measuring whether a Senator’s term expired at the end of the
Congress in which the vote occurred was never significant, suggesting that term length is
not a factor in intercameral gaps. Null findings were also consistently revealed for the
South dummy variable, indicating no role for sectionalism once other variables are held
constant. In short, constituency size is generally not a significant predictor of Senators’
votes on trade policy in bivariate or multivariate models, even in an era in which the
Senate is more supportive of trade than the House.
Yet the effect of constituency size may be different now as compared to earlier
eras in a way not captured by the analyses shown in Tables One and Two due to
inadequate controls. To address this concern I pool recent votes in which both chambers
voted on the same text and the gap between them was greatest. These cases offer the best
chance for constituency size to emerge as a significant predictor of Congressional voting
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on trade issues. They also permit a comparison of the relative importance of constituency
size and membership in the House or Senate in predicting legislators’ stands.
[Table Three about Here]
Table Three displays the results of those analyses. Unsurprisingly, it shows that
Republicans are less protectionist than Democrats in recent years. More importantly, it
reveals that, controlling for constituency size, Senators are significantly less protectionist
than Representatives. Constituency size itself (the natural log of the population of
Senators’ and Representatives’ constituencies) is a significant predictor in only one case,
a vote on Most-Favored Nation Status for China, on which it takes the “wrong” sign, i.e.
those with larger constituencies were more apt to take the protectionist side. These results
indicate that constituency size does not explain intercameral differences on trade issues.
Rather, Senators as a class are more supportive of trade liberalization than
Representatives, controlling for both party affiliation and constituency size.
Yet the results presented above may always be questioned on grounds of omitted
variable bias. Rather than make a necessarily incomplete attempt to show that such
differences persist independent of constituency factors, I exploit a “natural experiment.”
Some Senators and Representatives have identical constituencies. Nowadays this only
occurs in the least populous states, e.g. Vermont or North Dakota, which send just one
Representative-at -Large and two Senators to Washington. Yet until 1967 a handful of
larger states also elected one or more Representatives-at-Large in addition to those
chosen from districts.
A focused comparison of the votes cast cases by Representatives-at-Large and
Senators from the same states permits an assessment of the effects of House vs. Senate
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membership independent of constituency factors. Since the number of such legislators is
small at any given time I pool their votes on trade issues across multiple bills. As in
Figure One, I use only votes for which both houses considered the identical text. Since
intercameral and interbranch differences are a postwar phenomenon I used only votes
occurring from 1945 until the present.
[Table Four about Here]
Table Four shows the results of three logistic regressions. In all cases the
coefficient of interest is for the dummy variable Senator. It reveals that Senators are
significantly more likely to vote for freer-trade than Representatives even in this pooled
sample. Since the sample includes only Senators and Representatives-at-Large from the
same states this means those serving in the Senate are more free-trading than those in the
House, even controlling for constituency. As the second and third models presented
show, this effect is actually even larger when party and state dummies are added to the
analysis. In Models Two and Three I code the party variable as a one for Democrats from
1945-1970 and for Republicans since then with other MCs getting a zero. This coding
reflects the fact that the GOP replaced the Democrats as the more pro-trade party in the
early 1970s. In Model Three, which also includes state dummies, North Dakota is the
excluded variable. Thus a chamber membership effect is evident even when Senators and
Representatives have identical constituencies. This is further evidence that constituency
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factors do not explain the intercameral differences that have emerged on trade policy in
the postwar era.10
We have seen that intercameral and interbranch differences on trade issues
postdate by more than 150 years the differences in constituency size said to explain them.
We found that in bivariate and multivariate analyses that state size is generally not a
significant predictor of Senators’ voting on trade issues, even in the postwar era in which
the Senate is less protectionist than the House. We saw that in pooled regressions
Senators were more supportive of freer trade than Representatives controlling for
constituency size and even when, in the case of the “natural experiment” of Senators
compared with Representatives-at-Large, the two classes of legislators shared identical
constituencies. The case is overwhelming that constituency size does not account for the
notable differences in preferences among the House, Senate and Presidency on trade
issues evident in recent decades.
Directions for Future Study
While inter-cameral and inter-branch gaps on trade issues cannot be explained by
constituency size, they are real and important. Many hold that the liberalization of U.S.
trade policy since 1934 stems in part from Congress’s delegation of authority to the
President (Bailey, Goldstein and Weingast 1997, Destler 1995, Haggard 1988,
O’Halloran 1994, Pastor 1980). Yet this strategy can only succeed if Presidents remain at
least as committed to freer trade as Congress, as they have been since the days of FDR.
10
By controlling for constituency this analysis also reveals that intercameral differences
are not a product of the fact that different sectors are better represented in one chamber
than the other, e.g. the stronger position of agriculture in the Senate.
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Identifying the cause of this pattern could help us predict whether it is apt to
persist. In order to explain its postwar emergence we need a new theory in which an
institutional characteristic other than constituency size interacts with a factor that varies
over time. Space limitations do not permit the full presentation and testing of alternate
theories here. Nevertheless, I will briefly note some possible explanations for the pattern
revealed above that future research might explore.
Term length is an obvious characteristic that varies across political institutions.
Yet, it is not clear what other factor it would interact with to produce the postwar
emergence of the differences we observe. In addition, if those were more (or less)
protectionist Presidents would not be so much more consistently supportive of trade than
the median Senator. Moreover, in the models reported in Table Two the coefficient for
the dummy variable “Term Up” was never significant; Senators up for re-election at the
end of the Congress in which a bill was considered did not vote differently from those
who were not.
One alternate explanation might center on the role of campaign finance. Perhaps
the ratio of contributions from protectionist groups as opposed to pro-trade ones is greater
among Representatives than Senators and for Members of Congress generally as
contrasted with the President. If such differences exist and arose in the early postwar
period they could account for the findings presented above. However, it is unclear what
institutional features would give rise to such a pattern of contributions.
Another factor that merits attention is the number of elected officials in each
institution. Collective action problems mount as we move from the Presidency, a
“chamber” of one dominant elected official, to the Senate, to the House. Officials whose
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actions are more likely to be pivotal may be more apt to take positions in line with their
own preferences while those with less influence might weigh political pressures more
heavily. Thus when political pressures and policy goals conflict Presidents, and to a
lesser extent Senators, should act on their policy goals more often than Representatives.
Of course, the reduced collective action problem in the Presidency as contrasted
with the Senate and especially the House is no newer than their differences in
constituency size. Thus, it alone cannot explain a pattern that is relatively recent. One
possibility is that the postwar marginalization of protectionism in elite opinion scholars
(Bauer, Pool and Dexter 1972, Destler 1995, Goldstein 1993) describe has made the
number of actors in each branch of government newly relevant. This could be the case
assuming that the true beliefs of most elected officials now reflect this dominant view.
Even self-interested incumbents have reason to promote policies that they believe will
promote prosperity. Thus in a climate in which freer trade is widely seen as beneficial,
officials less burdened by collective action problems in resisting lobbies, i.e. Presidents
and to a lesser extent Senators, might be less protectionist than Representatives in a way
that was not true in earlier years when protectionism was more respectable (Karol 1999).
These are only some of the possible explanations that future research might
productively consider. A more satisfactory understanding of the patterns described above
requires more study and evidence.
Conclusion
Intercameral and interbranch differences on trade policy are real and important
yet their causes remain poorly understood. The trade policy strategy that has prevailed in
the U.S. since 1934 – Congressional delegation of authority to the President- can only
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succeed if Chief Executives remain at least as supportive of continued liberalization as
Congresses. A key implication of the findings presented here is that the larger
constituency of the President is no guarantee that this institutional alignment of
preferences will continue to exist.
A series of tests revealed that the conventional wisdom does not survive close
analysis of Presidents and MCs’ behavior on trade issues. The postwar emergence of
intercameral and interbranch differences on trade issues means that longstanding
differences in constituency size alone cannot explain them. Even in more recent decades
when intercameral and interbranch differences are clearly evident, constituency size
generally is not a significant predictor of Senators’ votes on trade issues. Differences
between Senators and Representatives on trade policy persist in pooled regressions when
constituency size is controlled for and, most strikingly, remain even when the analysis is
limited to those Representatives and Senators who share identical constituencies.
These results become less surprising when we recognize that the distributive
models underlying the claim that larger constituencies reduce protectionism are
fundamentally flawed. Small constituencies may encourage politicians to practice
distributive politics, but the struggles to shape U.S. trade policy do not fall into that
category. Far from being congenial pork-barreling log-rolls, votes on trade policy in
Congress are marked by bitter conflict between lobbies and increasing partisanship. The
leading business lobbies support trade liberalization while organized labor and
environmental organizations oppose it. Since all of these groups have party ties, the fact
that trade politics often have a partisan flavor should not be surprising. These groups’
presence in party coalitions means that Democratic and Republican Senators who
20
Karol
represent the same state may receive different signals from constituents on trade policy in
a way that they would not were the issue in question something like a highway bill.
It is not that legislators are indifferent to their constituents or that the
concentration of sectors with strong interests in trade policy in their constituencies does
not affect MCs’ votes. Rather it is the case that in contemporary U.S. politics
parochialism does not produce protectionism. Factor-based conflict as mediated by
parties matters explains MCs’ behavior far more than disagreement between different
industrial sectors. To the extent that constituency effects do matter, they impel some
legislators towards freer trade, much as they incline others to protectionism.
21
Karol
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Table One
The Effects of Logged State Population on U.S. Senators’ Support for Trade
Liberalization
1945-2005
Logistic Regression Models
(Standard Errors in Parentheses)
*=p-value< .05
Year and Issue
1945 RTAA
1949 RTAA
1955 RTAA
1958 RTAA
1962 Trade
Expansion Act
1974 Trade Act
1985 Textile/
Copper/
Footwear Bill
1987 Omnibus
Trade Bill
1988 Omnibus
Trade Bill
1991 MFN for
China
1993 NAFTA
1994 WTO
/GATT
1997 Fast Track
2000 PNTR
for China
2002 Trade
Promotion
Authority
2005 CAFTA
Log of State
Population
1.54(1.04)
1(.96)
Constant ChiN
Square
-.57(.62)
2.3 91
-.55(.59)
1.1 88
1.04(1.1)
3.4(1)*
.69(.86)
-1.73(.69)*
-,85(.57)
-.34(.50)
.9 91
10.9 91
.6 93
-.15(1)
-2.41(.90)*
1.36(.56)*
.68(46)
.02 92
7.7 99
-1.7(.94)
-.22(.47)
3.4 100
-1.54(.87)
.26(.45)
3.2 100
-2.43(.92)**
.90(.46)
7.7 99
-.93(.88)
3.7(1.1)*
.95(.47)*
-.80(.48)
1.1 98
14.2 100
-.62(.9)
-1.29(.92)
1.09(.48)*
1.32(.5)*
.5 100
2.0 96
-.31(.93)
1.0(.49)*
.1 96
1.47(.87)
-.45(.45)
2.9 99
28
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Table Two
Logistic Regression Models of U.S. Senators’ Support for Trade Liberalization on Key Votes 1945-2005
*=p-value < .05 (Standard Errors in Parentheses)
Vote
Log of GOP
Term Exports Unions
Textiles
Metals
South
Constant
Chi- N
State
Up
Sq.
Population
1945 RTAA
-11.3(6.5) -2.8(.8)* -.3(.6)
9.8(6)
2.5(2.4)
6.5(2)*
-1.8(1.9)
1.4(1.2)
.6(1.7) 52.4 91
1958 RTAA
4.1(2.5)
.5(.7)
.2(.6)
-.1(2.4)
.9(1.6)
1.5(1.1)
.9(1.4)
-1.3(.9) -2.8(1.2)* 24.5 91
1974 Trade Act
-.4(1.5) 1.3(.6)* -.2(.6) 1.2(1.5)
.7(1.2)
1.4(1.3)
-1.6(1.7)
-1.2(.9)
-2.3(4.2)
9.5 92
1985 Textile Bill
1988 Omnibus
Trade Bill
1991 MFN
China
1993 NAFTA
1994 WTO/
GATT
1997 Fast Track
2000 China
PNTR
2002 Trade
Promotion
Authority
2005 CAFTA
-.3(1.4)
1.7(.6)*
-.8(.6) 3.2(1.4)*
-.6(1.9)
-5.6(1.8)*
-6(2.4)*
-1.0(1.1)
2.3(2.1)
-1(2)
5.2(1)*
-.3(.8)
1.5(2.4)
-3.2(2.4)
-3.2(2)
1.1(2.2)
.4(1.4)
-6.6(2.4)*
-6.3(2.2)*
5.3(1)*
-.1(.8) 8.3(2.7)*
1.2(2.6)
-3.3(2.3)
-.1(2.1)
-1.1(1.2)
1.1(.5)*
-.1(.5)
-.5(1.7)
-1(1.5)
-1.2(1.4)
2.1(1.4)
.7(.8)
5(1.6)*
.5(.5)
-.1(.5)
-1(1.7)
.8(.7)
1.4(1.4)
-1.2(1.5)
-.9(1.2)
.9(.5)
-.6(.5)
.8(1.3)
.4(.7)
-2.6(1.4)
-.8(1.3)
-1.2(.6)*
-.7(.5)
1(1.8)
-.2(.8)
.5(1.5)
2.8(.8)*
-.3(.6)
4(1.8)*
1.2(1.4)
3(.7)*
1.1(.6)
3.1(1.7)
1.7(1.4) -10.5(2.9)*
52
99
77.6 100
80.9
98
-4(1.6)
12.8
99
-1(.7)
-.3(1.5)
20.5
98
.2(1.6)
1.4(.8)
.9(1.4)
12 100
-3.2(1.5)*
-4.6(2.5)
-.3(.9)
7.9(2.6)
26.5 100
-1.5(1.1)
-2.3(1.7)
.8(2.2)
.9(1.4)
-.9(3.3)
40.7
96
-.2(.9)
-2.5(1.7)
3.1(1.2)*
1.8(2)
1.8(1.1)
51.5
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Table Three
Pooled Logistic Regression Estimates of Members of Congress’s votes
On Trade Bills with Large House-Senate Gaps
1992-2002
(Positive Coefficients Indicate Support for Trade Liberalization)
Standard Errors in Parentheses *= p-value<.05 ↑= p-value <.10
Vote
GOP
Senator Population
Constant
P.R.E N
1992 China MFN I
2.9(.3)*
2.2(.5)*
-.4(.3)
-.8(3.6)
4.4 520
1992 China MFN II
2.8(.3)*
2.8(.3)*
-.6(.3)*
2(3.5)
5.2 516
1999 Steel Quotas
2.6(.2)*
.9(.5) ↑
.2(.2) -8.3(3.2)*
11.9 529
2000 China PNTR
1.5(.2)*
1.4(.6)*
.1(.3)
-3.5(3.7)
12.5 530
2002 Trade Promotion Authority 3.5(.3)*
1.2(.6)*
.01(.3)
-5.4(3.4)
13.1 525
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Table Four
The Effect of Membership in House vs. Senate on the Trade Policy Votes of
Members of Congress with Identical Constituencies:
Senators and Representatives-at-Large from the Same States Compared
1945-2006
(Pooled Logistic Regression Estimates.)
*=p-value <.05 Standard errors in parentheses.
.
Variables
Senator
Party
Alaska
Arizona
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Illinois
Montana
Nevada
New
Mexico
Ohio
South
Dakota
Vermont
Wyoming
Constant
Chi-Square
Pct.
Predicted
Correctly
Number
Model 1
Model 2
.48(.20)*
Model 3
.62(.22)*
1.83(.21)*
.65(.23)*
1.58(.28)*
.18(.47)
7.48(29.9)
1.01(.92)
1.04(.39)*
8.0(33.6)
8.0(33.6)
.72(.47)
.10(.83)
7.48(17.29)
-.54(1.28)
.19(.39)
.16(.16)
5.9
61.5
470
-.02(.37)
.80(.46)
-1.14(.30)*
116.1
73.4
-.80(.21)*
88.3
70.4
449
31
449
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Figure One
Inter-Cameral Differences in Support for Freer Trade
in the U.S. Congress: 1820-2006
.4
Senate-House Difference
.3
.2
.1
-.0
-.1
-.2
-.3
1820
1850
1835
1879
1865
1909
1894
32
1934
1920
1964
1949
1992
1979
2003