Marionettes And Puppeteers: Critiquing the Congressional Committees
and Interest Groups Leadership and Interaction Literature
W.T. Casey
Abstract
In this work I critique the literature on the role that leadership plays in interest group demands for policy needs as directed at
committees in Congress. I link this exploration to the literature on the role of leadership in those same committees, with its
tendency of focusing upon the transactional leadership payoff structure. Some scholars dissenting from that view argue
leadership is sometimes charismatic, or assert that leadership is instead transformational. I posit that as the scholarly work has
emphasized trade-offs and payouts, we have the ability to test the above assumptions, and that the literature on leadership
begs for a test of assumptions. I propose such a test, and offer concrete methods for carrying out such a test.
In this work I critique the literature on the role that leadership plays in interest group1 demands for
policy needs as directed at committees in Congress. I link this exploration to the literature on the role of
leadership in those same committees. I do this as studies of Congressional leadership tend to focus upon
the transactional leadership payoff structure.
That is, the main of empirical effort appears to devote itself to whether or not leaders in Congress
exercise leverage and bargaining power, attempt to influence relationships, or modify activities so as to
1
An interest group may be defined as an organized body of individuals who share policy goals and try to influence
policy. They differ from a political party in that they are not attempting to win office. The power of an interest group comes
from its’: 1) size (number of members), 2) wealth, 3) organizational strength, 4) leadership, 5) access to decision makers and
6) internal cohesion. Groups often form when a disturbance occurs and people of like-mindedness come together to resist
change. The leader of such a group may be a policy entrepreneur, or in some cases a proxy for outside concerns, and
therefore only a manager. Interest groups often compete with each other and sometimes cooperate.
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curry favor with other Congressional leaders. These activities are done so that legislation moves through
the sub-committees and committees and on to the floor at a pace beneficial to individual leaders.
But does the structure outlined above truly describe the manner in which leadership is employed?
Scholars dissenting from that view argue leadership is sometimes charismatic, wherein the leader
exhorts followers to do his or her bidding and they do so out of deference, respect, or awe. Others assert
that leadership is instead transformational; that is, leaders in Congress act selflessly out of a ‘higher
calling’, believing that their activity benefits their district, their state, or the nation as a whole.
I posit that as the scholarly work has emphasized trade-offs and payouts, political science has the ability
to test the above assumptions. And though the Senate and House differ in institutional structure, norms,
rules and traditions, per Fenno (1973) and Maltzmann (1998), these differences do not weaken the
concepts being explored. Furthermore, the literature on Congressional leadership begs for a test of
assumptions, no matter the superficial dissimilarities. I propose such a test, and offer concrete methods
for carrying out such a test. I begin the work by examining multiple works and reviewing the extant
literature
From the works of Fenno (1973) and Mayhew (1974), through the essays of Swers (2001) and Palazzolo
(2002), and into the modern forays of Heberlig et al. (2006), Rohde et al. (2008), Cann (2008) and
Straus (2012), I show the existence of one large and two smaller literatures on the phenomenon of
Congressional leadership. These follow in the order as given above.
Leadership, Management and Followership Defined
Leadership can be defined as an influence relationship, one in which a person’s individual effort’s and
persuasion’s modify the inclinations and behaviors of others within a particular group (Bass, 1990).
Moreover, democratic leadership means that the followers have given some form of consent to being
led. In the case of Congress, this latter point is of import. Revolts against heavy-handed (Polsby, 1968,
in Weisberg, Heberlig, and Campoli, 1999) or merely unliked (Arnold, 1990) leaders may occur in a
democratic leadership system; Congressional history bears this out. The need for consent affects the
relationship so that bargaining, trading, and/or ‘logrolling’, appears to dominate any leaders strategies.
Interest groups are voluntary organizations, so the aspects of democratic leadership apply at least in part.
More finely, leadership for groups can be said to any permanent (sudden or gradual) effort by an
individual or group of individuals to push the group towards the completion of the groups stated goals.
Thus, group leadership is contingent upon the realistic expectation of fulfillment of goals, and is pathgoal dependent.
Followership is more difficult to define and discern, stating it as simply the act of following is
insufficient. Followership constitutes an active component of the leader-follower relationship, the
definition of democratic leadership bears this out. Followers do not passively assent to being led, and if
dissatisfied with the leadership they may shift their allegiances elsewhere. In an institution that holds
fast to the aphorism of primus inter pares, followership must be as strong as leadership for progress to
occur in committee functions.
Management is a bit easier to define, and not so amorphous. Management of a group is any individual or
individuals within the organization attempting to complete group goals, but with a strong emphasis on a)
maintaining group stability; and, b) performing their task(s) with an eye to efficiency. Managers are
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sometimes thought of as caretakers, and are not expected to initiate novel approaches or fundamentally
alter established methods.
Theories of Interest Groups and Background
The theoretical point of view held by many social scientists is that politics is best understood through the
following generalization: relatively speaking, power is broadly and inequitably distributed among many
organized interest groups in society. They compete with one another to control public policy. Some
groups tend to dominate in one or two issue areas or arenas of struggle while other groups and interests
tend to dominate in other issue areas or arenas of struggle. There is little overlap between those leaders
who participate most influentially in one policy area and those who are influential in other policy areas.
What linkage there is tends to come from popularly elected political officials who must exercise
leadership in a number of different policy areas. There is no single, unified "power elite," but rather
there are many competing power elites with differing backgrounds, values and bases of support in the
broader society. The state becomes a mechanism for mediation and compromise for the constantly
shifting balance between group interests rather than as an active innovator of policies.
The tenets of pluralist leadership theory are that the task of the political system is to manage group
conflict by establishing the rules of the game, arranging compromises, enacting the deals into law,
enforcing the laws and adjudicating them. Government becomes a dis-interested referee calling the
penalties and keeping score, and public policy becomes only a temporary equilibrium. Adherents of this
theory assert
1) that government is held together by a latent group which supports the system,
2) that there is overlapping membership in different groups,
3) there exists checks and balances of group competition; and,
4) all groups are oriented to agenda building.
Both the group leaders and political scientist believe that situation will remain permanently fluid and no
one group will have a permanent victory.
Interest groups are collections of individuals who join together to pursue common interests and to
influence public policy, and are seen as an integral and beneficial part of the political process.
Governments often frequently laud group involvement as a necessary component of policy-making,
providing vital information on public opinion and on the impact of policy proposals.
No definitive tally of interest groups exists; in the United States alone, however, they number upwards
of 350,000. When compared to nations that require a more substantive accounting of these groups, like
Germany, the U.S.’s number is significant. As German electoral law requires their registration, the
official number of 295,000 there seems a bit low, but not outrageously so. Comparable and
proportionate numbers exist in the other large modern welfare-state industrialized democracies.
Groups may be classified in a variety of ways. Some of the broader categories are business, banking,
labor, education, farm, health, energy, environment, professional associations, foreign political and
economic interests, senior citizens, consumers, ideology-oriented groups, women, the "public”, the poor,
and religious groups. Many groups overlap in categories and group membership.
Groups may act individually or through broader "umbrella" organizations. Business groups may include
individual corporations (such as Mobil Oil or General Motors); trade associations (such as the American
Petroleum Institute.); and broader organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers.
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Labor groups include individual unions, such as the Teamsters and the United Mine Workers, and labor
federations, most notably the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO).
A large number of groups engage in extensive activity at both national and local levels, attempting to
influence government policy decisions. Many groups have permanent offices located in capital cities;
some retain law firms or other groups to act as lobbyists. Their goals may range from passing, blocking,
or amending legislation to achieving a favorable regulatory ruling, receiving a government contract, or
obtaining a favorable judicial decision. Groups use a variety of resources to gain access to legislators
and other government officials, including monies for campaigns, substantive expertise, and political and
leadership skills. Groups are often represented by former members of the national legislature, staff
members, or former executive officers. These people provide both political skills and substantive
knowledge of the workings of the government.
Beginning in the late 1970s these groups took on new importance in politics. "Single-issue politics,"
whereby many individuals and groups supported or rejected candidates based solely on their views on
particular question such as abortion, the environment, or gun control, came to the fore and were
regarded as increasingly important factors in political contests. The sources for these developments were
many. Campaign financing reforms enacted in the mid-1970s in the U.S., as an example, limited direct
contributions to candidates and made political-action committees (PACs) a very effective way to
channel political contributions. Some PACs represented corporations, some labor groups, and others
industry or trade associations. More of them came about due to concern over specific issues or had
explicitly ideological agendas.
Interest groups play a key mediating and representational role in politics. In the theory of pluralist
politics, organized groups represent the interests of varied segments of society in the national policy
process. These groups organize to represent the views of their members, giving voice to their members'
interests in all policy making arenas. The competition from the varied organized groups provides
valuable information for policy makers and ensures government remains responsive to those affected by
public policy.
Pluralist theory held at one time that nearly all interests were represented nearly equally, or at least in
reasonably balanced proportions, in the political process. Critics of interest group pluralism, such as
Schattschneider (1983) and Walker (1966), called attention to distinct inequalities in the interest group
system of representation, finding that elite and industrial interests typically had better organizational
representation in politics. At the time Schattschneider wrote, only a small segment of interests in society
were represented by organized groups, and these groups primarily were organized to represent
businesses or professionals.
Mancur Olson (1971) further challenged conventional pluralist theory with his elucidation of the logic of
collective action. Olson's work helped explain the mobilization of bias observed by Schattschneider by
illuminating the free rider effect and other obstacles to organizing in order to secure public goods,
challenges which seemed most insurmountable for citizen groups organized to secure diffuse benefits or
prevent diffuse costs. Yet at the same time that collective action theory was revealing the flaws in
pluralist accounts of interest group formation, seemingly the world of interest groups began to defy
Olson's logic. The civil rights, women's movements, environmental and consumer groups, all emerged in
spite of the theoretical limitations of collective organization and have become institutionalized in
politics (Frymer, 2007). Policy arenas once characterized as "iron triangles" or tightly linked “subStrategic Leadership Review, Volume 2, Issue 4
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governments" rapidly expanded in the face of the new groups and became more diversified (Gais,
Peterson, & Walker 1984).
The agenda of interest group scholars has since been dominated in large measure by efforts to explain
the paradox of growing numbers of citizen-oriented interest groups in the face of otherwise compelling
collective action problems. How could these groups even come about in the face of free rider effects?
The short answer, if one is to pull together nearly thirty years of research and dangerously oversimplify,
appears to be that interest group leaders make the difference.
Group leaders act as entrepreneurs, securing support from government and foundations and offering
members a range of purposive and solitary benefits in exchange for signing up (Salisbury 1969, Wilson
1973, Moe 1980, Walker 1983, 1991, Hardin 1982). Compared with the attention give to the formation
and maintenance of interest groups, what these groups actually do once they are organized remains little
studied. Many detailed case studies of interest group politics exist (Mansbridge 1986; McFarland 1984;
Rothenberg 1991), yet the internal decision making of these groups remains an area for further
systematic research. Given the representational role interest groups play in pluralist, democratic politics,
the relative paucity of research on the role of members in the decisions of these groups is disturbing.
There exists in what we know about the representational link in interest group decision making a large
black hole of information (Rothenberg 1991, Cigler 1994, Tierney 1994, Browne 1996, see also Mueller
2008).
The gap in empirical research on how interest groups account for members' views, and how effectively
they do so in selecting policy issues and crafting strategies is even more unsettling given scholarly
interest in variance in political representation. This has led to the recognition of distinct meanings of
political representation, two of the more prominent involving analogies to delegates and trustees (Pitkin
1967). Regular observers of interest group politics detail specificities of internal tensions between
members' and their interest group leaders.
Elite leaders of interest groups, much like public officials, are sometimes criticized as being "out-oftouch" with their constituents and only remotely connected with their individual group members
(McCann 1986, Skocpol 1996, Maner and Mead 2010). Member consultation is necessary for effective
representation of group members by leaders. The leaders of some groups regularly consult with their
members in formulating positions and adopting strategies, while others consult less regularly if at all
(Key 1964, Berry 1984, Gerber 2011).
The larger a group's overall membership the smaller may be each members' overall impact on group
decisions. The size of an organization was among Michels' (1962:71) "technical" causes of
organizational oligarchy, a tendency which some empirical research confirms (Indik 1965). The larger
an organization becomes, the more difficult it may become for leaders to coordinate communication
with members so as to learn the views of the membership as a whole. Leaders of groups with larger
membership sizes can therefore be expected to consult less with their members, and more so with those
near them in the structure. Those groups with larger staffs will be, ceteris paribus, better equipped to
consult with their membership.
If collective action problems exist in organizing groups, they should also exist in deciding group goals.
Research following Olson (1971) has tacitly assumed that once interest organizations are formed, the
collective action problem has been surmounted. The group then simply proceeds towards their goals.
This is a flawed logic, as disagreements may exist between members over the precise nature of the
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desired goal. As well, factions may evolve out of which method is most suitable. Finally, there is no
reason to think that leaders will always agree with members on goals or strategies, and principal-agent
theory suggests that members may well have to fear some shirking on the part of their leaders.
Not only does knowledge of members’ wants take resources from the leadership, which must move the
group towards their goals, but the time and resources of members themselves must be taxed. The costs
of activity as a member are small when that action is limited to merely cheque-writing. However, costs
become greater when action involves participating in group activities. Thus, skillful manipulation of
members’ grievances and frustrations become a measurable component to leaders’ arsenals.
Congressional Leadership: Theories and Background
Masters (1961) forwards the idea that leadership is a trade-off relationship between the leaders of the
various committees. A similar relationship exists between committee leaders and Chamber leaders.
More specifically, he notes that leaders use committee assignment decisions as bargaining chips in
dealing with other leaders.
Fenno (1973) says that members hold three goals- re-election, gaining influence in Congress, and
putting out “good public policy” (1). This second goal necessarily invokes a trade-off relationship such
as logrolling and other quid pro quo behaviors, i.e. trading votes on chair and sub-chair assignments,
trading votes on favored legislation, supporting confirmations, and on. Mayhew (1974) asserts that the
committee system allows a division of labor that in turns allows a parceling out of legislative activities.
This makes membership on committees a sought after thing, increasing the value of the membership on
certain committees and chairs. Given this valuation, it follows that such could be used in leveraging
particular legislation in other committees, or “logrolling” amendments on the floor.
Mayhew adds that those seeking a particular membership (committee, task force, et cetera), increase the
committee leaders’ prestige and their peculiar leadership powers. This allows them to attempt to force
committee members to hew a particular course, which becomes reciprocal in enlarging the leaders’
power. As committee leaders depend upon floor leaders for cues and direction some of the time, and as
floor leaders need committee support, the relationship becomes almost symbiotic. To this, add the sense
that leaders attempt to remain above the ideological fray in keeping legislation moving, their ability to
control the agenda, and settle informational costs exchanges; and we can deduce that at least in the prereform Congress, committee as well as floor leaders wielded great influence.
Shepsle and Weingast (1987) advance the idea that the various committee powers- gatekeeping,
information, proposal- arise out of a system of reciprocal deference. This system is not inviolate, but
rather, the reciprocal deference is a façade for a sequential equilibrium, or to rephrase, an exchange
relationship. Promises to floor leaders must be delivered, oft-times yielding floor nods and even party
support come campaign season.
Munger (1988) illustrates that leader/follower relationships are structured with an eye to reward for
service and a premise of support. He also notes that the promises made by members to the leadership are
oft-times unenforceable. This coupled with the possibility of decreased value in any particular
committee assignment (due to reform efforts, for instance) means that the trade-off/payout structure is
eroded, emboldening followers to pursue individual actions. Members may feel free to commence
activity irrespective of threats of incentive, sanction, or punishment. Free to pursue their own courses,
members may strike out on their own, and attempt to influence policy, or negotiate bills, without help or
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hindrance from above or below. This intuitively seems unlikely given the institutions themselves. If
democratic leadership and followership is indeed a Nash equilibrium as Kreps (1990) suggests, the
autonomy of the individual members created by this structural shift lessens the leaderships’ power, and
equilibrium is maintained.
Hall and Grofman (1990) reach a similar assumption. Those members of Congress seeking access to, or
a seat on, that (or by extension any other), committee must be willing to offer something (such as
loyalty, or vote support) in exchange. This relationship presupposes that the committee leadership had
the power to offer an item of exchange, and that this interaction contributes to both the prestige of the
leader and the follower.
Douglas Arnold (1990) showcases some of the strategies available to leaders within Congress. The three
main approaches leaders may choose among are Strategies of Persuasion (the display of benefits, and
minimization of costs), Procedure (careful employ of rules and norms), and Modification (adjustment of
legislative proposals so as to engender support) (92). Obviously these all elaborate upon the exchange
aspect of leadership. Arnold asserts all are useful in procuring support of desired legislation.
Rohde (1991) points out that leaders must keep issues salient to followers and must minimize the costs
of followers’ participation. Further, the haggling and bargaining in which leaders engage when
advancing their particular issue- whether on the floor or in committee – directly results from the
followers’ shaping of a leaders power. For Rohde, understanding followers is therefore as important as
any dissection of leadership. None the matter, as Rohde reasons a leader/follower behavior constitutes a
tit-for-tat exchange.
Groseclose (1994) posits leaders may assume the benefits of transactional leadership in the form of
logrolling to be imagined. He can not reject the notion that this may be a very real assumption on the
part of the leaders, similar to what Adler and Lapinski (1997) find. They assert that work on particular
legislation creates notions of worth and value, and progress predicates itself upon imagined worth in an
exchange-based context. (904, ff.).
Hall (1996) contends that committee and floor leaders are “players with extra cards” in this game (9798). This remains true even after the reforms of the 1970’s. Extra staffs, resource allocations, and other
benefits may be disbursed by leaders so as to bolster their position. The use of these perks comes at the
cost of delivering votes on legislation, or speeding through legislation. This power does not subside once
legislation leaves committee and hits the floor, but rather the committee (and sub-committee) chairs can
use their relative informational advantage to maintain their power in exchanges. Hall also posits that
sub-committee leaders act as agents for the committee on the floor, which becomes effectively a leadermanager relationship.
Strahan, et alii (1997) show that Congressional leaders regularly couple ambition with influence
exchange behavior, while Groseclose and King (1997) aver that leaders use the bargaining chip of
informational advantage, with committee and sub-committee chairs harboring no reluctance to use that
tool liberally. Groseclose and Stewart (1998) continue this line of thought, offering the premise that
transfers to and from one committee to another are regularly fraught with transactional bargains and
deals.
Deering and Smiths’ (1997) seminal work on committees exhibits the premise that the limits and norms
of each chamber constrain leadership opportunities in committees. The reforms of the 1970’s had the
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“…effect of placing committee leaders on a shorter leash” (127). Since then, efforts to regain power and
influence mean that committee leaders may once again deploy transactional strategies to conserve their
individual power bases, albeit not as fruitfully as before.
Maltzman (1998) holds that as committee leaders are sure of their advantages, they may act without
regard to outside preferences. Leadership is a reciprocal process, however, as committee chairs receive
their positions from the floor leaders as a reward for service and support, with the un-written promise of
continuing that: effectively, a contract (see Rohde, 166). The selection to leadership affords the chair
(and by devolution, sub-committee chairs) the wherewithal to cajole, threaten, promise and persuade
members of the committee to behave as the chair wishes (Maltzman, 57-59), and by extension, as the
Speaker, Majority Leader, Minority Whip, ad nauseam desire. This may allow the various leaders to
impede the party’s desires, but the fear of retaliatory action from the party, from the floor, or even from
the committee proper controls deviations. Thus Maltzman describes a transactional relationship based
upon incentive and punishment, reward and humiliation. (Maltzman notes that this applies to the Senate
as well as to the House (129-130)).
Krehbiel (1998) purports to show that legislative wrangling is a two-player game, and that the intra- and
extra-committee battles are dyadic as well. Lawmaking, is “…a dynamic process of back-and-forth
bargaining through repeated offers and counter-offers…” (188). Carson and Rohde (1999) also show
this transactional nature. They theorize that members extract promises of reward in exchange for their
promises of support. Examples of the former range from staff allocation increases, to favoritism in
reporting pet bills. Examples of the latter include not only direct vote shows, but aiding committee
leaders in persuading recalcitrant members of the opposition to abandon those counter-positions so as to
engender a public show of consensus. Carson, Finocchiaro, and Rohde (2000) in an examination of the
104th Congress show that transactional leadership activity runs from the bottom (sub-committee) to the
top (floor leaders) and back. Committee members exhibit behavior supporting their chair, sometimes
against party leader preferences, and committee chairs support factions against factions
Finocchiaro (2000) posits that attempts by House leaders to ‘rein-in’ committee and sub-committee
leaders have met with mixed success. This results at least in part because other chairs and sub-chairs not
under scrutiny see such as an assault on the collective of chairs and sub-chairs. The loss of some
prerogatives from the committee leaders therefore conjoins with resistance to cooperate with the
Speaker. As an example, reluctant chairs seek out protection from forced reporting of bills under the
aegis of House rules on germaneness, allowing them to retrench, consolidate, and evince concessions
from the Speaker.
Moscardelli (2000) approaches the Republican reforms of the 1990’s from a more traditional direction.
He advocates the notion that, for all of the alterations to institutional structure, power has not
substantively devolved away from leaders of committees and those they designate as sub-leaders.
Rather, he shows that the intent by Republican party leaders in the Senate to control committee leaders
through diminution has instead given chairs more flexibility, and allowed them to play off the sub-unit
chairs against each other. In exchange for support on pet legislation, the committee chair controls
reporting of bills and bill outcomes on the floor almost as effectively as before the reforms. Green
(2001) reports very similar results in his examination of the House.
Michelle Swers (2001) posits that the last thirty years point up effective differences in leader types and
leadership approaches. She shows that male and female committee chairs and sub-unit leaders differ, in
that male leaders are more aggressive, while females more integrative. She asserts that the more
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integrative, cooperative approach may lead to increased (albeit less acrimonious) bargaining. Palazzalo
(2002) also posits the need for bargaining, exchange, and reciprocity. His case study of current
legislative debates gives additional evidence of leadership engaging in rational exchange behavior. As
well, his work credits the idea that attempts in the 1990’s to disperse power have not been at all
successful.
Others examining these bargaining and exchange approaches have nuanced their foci to studies of
benefit allocation (Carroll and Kim 2010), the role of campaign monies (Heberlig et al. 2006), efficacy
(Volden and Wiseman 2009), information management (Curry 2011), or the organization of Congress
proper (Rohde et al. 2008). But all of these continue to skirt the issue of leadership interactions and
leaderships per se. Thus the necessity of this work.
The Interaction of Committee and Interest Group Leadership
Four distinctive features of the modern Congressional committee system affect the interaction between
the respective leaders in different wise:
a) Standing Committees: These allow for repeated interactions and long-term relationships
between the interest group leaders and the leaders of the relevant committees. That committee
chairman will undertake actions relevant to the interested groups much more frequently than if
there were no specialization by committee. This structure can therefore increase the potential for
repetitive interaction, and as well allow for tete-a-tete style relationships to develop as the
interest groups leaders prove to the chairman that they are providing credible information,
expertise, and other valued stuff to the chairman in particular and the chairman’s party as a
whole. (Krozner and Strattman, 1997);
b) Longevity of Committee Assignments: Haphazard or ad hoc committee assignments and reassignments would play hob with the perceptions of integrity and expertise. Moreover, as
legislators effectively have the ability to stay on the same committee for as long as they are reelected (Shepsle 1978), this feature is valuable only to the extent that incumbent legislators have
a high propensity to be re-elected (Polsby 1968). The long-term assignment allows for greater
knowledge gathering, and for mutually convivial relationships to develop among the policy
actors- especially the chairs, subs-, and group leaders (Kau and Rubin, 1979). It may also allowsince congressional tenure is longer than interest group tenure- a slight advantage in bargaining
to committee leaders.
c) Specialization of Committees: Every committee and sub-committee manages and controls
legislation within a pre-determined arena. This allows not only interest groups to dovetail their
messages and expertise in anticipation of trade-offs (Wooton, 1985), but also allows committee
members- and their leadership most particularly- to develop pari passu their knowledge/data sets
appropriately. This levels the playing field psychologically (Katz and Kahn, 1948), and places
the group leaders and chairmen on a level ground more conducive to logrolling behaviours
(Haythornthwaite and Wellman, 1998); and,
d) Membership Limitations: legislators are limited to the number of committees to which they
might be assigned. Thus Chairmen’s expertise is not spread too thin, but interest groups may be
able to “attack” a particular policy area on multiple fronts. This factor creates the potential for
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interest groups leaders to assimilate more information than their congressional counterparts
(Fordham and McKeown, 2000), and offsets – possibly by a great deal- any advantage that
Congress may have received in developing the contemporary committee system.
Congress developed and hews to the committee system because it supposedly fosters repeated
interaction, reputation building, and long-term relationships which benefit both sides and move them
closer to an equilibria wherein bargaining is equalized (Welsh et al. 2008). But the interaction between
groups and chairs is not one in which both sides proceed apace. Rather, as popular literature asserts and
the academy attests, interest groups- and particularly their leaders- have a positive dynamic in their
favour at the bargaining table. This suggests that the continuation of the committee system serves the
individual chairs and sub-chairs more than Congress en toto, as they bask in the warmth of the true nexi
of power: interest groups.
Another aspect of the Congressional Leader/Interest Group Leader interaction is oft discussed in
passing, but the literature demonstrating this suspicion is elusive. That is, the apparent power enjoyed by
any Interest Group Leader is more absolute than that of any Congressional Committee Chairman (at
least since the days of ‘Tsar’ Cannon). This is due in the main to the way in which they are chosen. The
one (Interest Group Leader) is selected by a tight, loyal cadre of devoteés, whilst the other is selected
based upon, ultimately, the whims of the mass electorate and his or her demonstrated loyalty to the
party. Given this mandate from his membership, it is more power-infusing than almost any other
leadership position outside of religion (Zand, 1997; Campbell, 1948).
Empirically Testing Theories of Leadership: Surveying Leadership
The review of the leadership literature gives little supporting evidence for transformational and
charismatic leadership, and is less thorough than that for transactional leadership. Those that hold to
“great man” [sic] theories of leadership, or that argue for an idealistic ‘serving the people’ norm, offer
scant (if any) data or evidence in support of their suppositions. To assist in settling the curfuffle, I
propose testing the leadership assumptions using surveys.
Accepting time and resource constraints, the ideal survey would be crafted by a research team dedicated
to the task. Surveying interest group members could be well beyond problematic2, so I propose only
surveying Congress, given the accessibility to that body. The surveys should be distributed to all
members of Congress (MC’s) currently serving, as well as all former MC’s who had been elected to and
served at least one full term. The Office of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress,
maintains addresses and other vital information that may be useful for contacting former members.
Given that there are 535 current MC’s, and the Biographical Directory lists 372 former MC’s3, the
anticipated number of respondents would exceed 700. One would also have to account for those former
MC’s who have gone through the ‘revolving door’ and are now on the interest group side of the lobby –
forty seven from the 111th Congress alone (Center for Responsive Politics, 2012).
Facilitation of the survey would be via either postal or e-mailing out the forms and awaiting responses.
Upon receipt, the research team would code responses for quantitative analysis. Should the survey prove
2
Dan Wood and Jon Bond note that interest groups regularly survey their members, but that such are either proprietary, or
flawed and thus worthless from an empirical aspect. Robert Walker asserts that such surveys have a utility in telling social
science what interest group leaders find to be salient – but through negative definition.
3
The U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (http://usafmc.org/ ) claims over 550 members, so problems exist in
the count, but none beyond the ken of an assiduous scholar.
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fruitful, the survey could be re-administered every year, in order to allow the research team to build a
large compendium of information from which research could be performed time and again.
The survey itself should be constructed so that all aspects of leadership can be examined. Thus,
questions should not dwell solely upon one type of leadership, but upon the three macro-types listed
earlier. What follows are some suggested questions and responses. A variant of typical coding schemata
is in parentheses next to the responses.
1) During your tenure in (U.S. House) (U.S. Senate), you may have had opportunities to meet with
other members of Congress, including committee leaders. Reflecting upon the times where you and
the committee leader were in agreement, how would you have characterized that relationship?
a) One of mutual respect, where my support for legislation was due to my respect for the
Committee leader. (3, charismatic)
b) One of exchange, in which my support was for the Committee leaders giving me support later.
(1, transactional)
c) One in which the Committee leader was able to convince me of the greater good served by my
support for the leader’s position. (2, transformational)
d) One not characterized by any of the above statements (0)
2) Reflecting upon your service in the in (U.S. House) (U.S. Senate), you may have had opportunities
to meet with other members of Congress, some of whom you may have regarded as de facto leaders
outside of the formal leadership structure. How would you characterize the relationship you had with
that person?
a) One in which that person was able to convince me of the greater good served by my support for
their position. (2, transformational)
b) One of mutual respect, where my support for legislation was due to my respect for that person.
(3, charismatic)
c) One of exchange, in which my support was for that person providing support to me later. (1,
transactional)
d) One not characterized by any of the above statements. (0)
3) If you have served as a chair of a sub-committee, how would you characterize the relationship you
had with your sub-committee?
(similar response list)
4) If you have served as a chair of a sub-committee, how would you characterize the relationship you
had with your committee chair?
(similar response list)
5) If you have served as a chair of a committee, how would you characterize the relationship you had
with your sub-committee chairs?
(similar response list)
6) If you have served as a chair of a committee, how would you characterize the relationship you had
with your committee as a whole?
(similar response list)
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7) If you have served as a chair of a committee, how would you characterize the relationship you had
with your party leaders?
(similar response list)
8) If you have served as a chair of a committee, how would you characterize the relationship you had
with the leaders on the floor?
(similar response list)
9) In your service as a member of a committee or sub-committee, how would you characterize the
relationship you had with the leaders on the floor?
(similar response list)
…and so forth. The questions would be designed to encompass as many facets of Congressional activity
as possible. The questions would be of both general and specific natures, so as to capture generalities
and idiosyncracies. Tailored survey questions pertinent to individual committees, task forces, panels,
hearings, et cetera could be constructed, as the biographical information would reveal those
memberships. This tailoring would capture individual variations, and provide the researcher with richer
data for study. All responses would ask for demographic information, as well as for number of terms
served. For those still serving, years in Congress total.
This would be followed up by interviews with those individuals not returning the survey. Further
“follow-up” interviews with current congressional leaders would also be done. All interviews would
then be subjected to content analysis. As already mentioned, the ideal survey and interview sequence
would be repeated at yearly intervals, so that a larger data set could be constructed. The data derived
from interviews and surveys would be rigorously examined in an empirical model.
Modeling the Data
Once data are in hand, the researchers could begin modeling it to determine what trends exist, what
regional variations there are, and so forth. I have suggested earlier that most leadership in Congress is
transactional in nature. A model to test for that could be to construct a model based upon a modified
Nash Equilibrium (Kreps, 1990). In such a relationship, any one persons leadership power becomes an
inverse function of others leadership powers. Furthermore, individual leaders powers are the sum of all
sub-leader powers (for instance, Majority Leader < Committee Chair < Sub-Committee Chair), no
matter how those sub-units are invented or arranged. This could be expressed as
f(c) = 1/h
and
Σ(s) = c
Where 1/h is the individuals leadership power over a particular arena, c is the particular leaders powers,
and s is each sub-unit. I assert that the particulars of leadership in Congress can be gathered under these
formulae.
A simpler model could be a variation on the Geary Test, also known as the “runs” test, whereby all 3’s,
2’s, 1’s, and 0’s are counted, and then compared. Proportions and/or percentages of each type of
leadership could be fashioned, and theoretical explanations of Congressional leadership would thereby
be more carefully scrutinized for verisimilitude. I believe the empirical results that could be assimilated
under my survey design might well bear this out.
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Conclusion
In this work, I have given treatment to the Interest Group formation literature, the literature on
Congressional Leadership, group theory; and I have defined leadership, management and followership. I
have as well stated what the nature of a leader/follower relationship typically is in an interest group, and
laid out the scholarship revolving about Congressional committee/leader dynamics and interactions. The
literature suggests that interest group leaders enjoy a slight advantage over their Congressional
counterparts in the bargaining and bartering process. By being able to approach multiple congressional
leaders on multiple fronts, the separate and several group leaders are able to (through use of a much
larger network of resources) have the upper hand, and thus demand more than they offer. Being able as
well to have the apparent entirety of a large organization at their disposal - an “awesome” power, to
paraphrase Lenin - commands the attention at the least of Congressional leaders. Examining the
methods in which a large group such as the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) cajoles
and coerces favourable policies out of Congress seems to bear this out, and without exaggeration, a
myriad number of examples can be adduced. At some point, the plural of anecdote does become “data”.
I have proposed a testable heuristic for empirically assessing leadership quantitatively. I have also
outlined a rudimentary technique for measuring leadership in Congress, through use of surveys. I believe
such a course of action would yield an easily accessible and useful data set. Pursuing this activity would
not be prohibitively costly, although start-up expenses would most likely exceed later ones. Construction
of the survey would take some little time, and administering the survey would be relatively painless.
Deficiencies in such a design are in the reliance upon MC’s to a) complete the survey truthfully, and b)
return the completed survey with alacrity. However, given the potential benefits such a design might
yield, the expenditure seems worthwhile.
More to the point, pursuing this research task could be performed by a limited number of people. This
would ensure coding reliability, and keep the focus of the research group on the task at hand. As well,
such a simple design allows for easy replication, so that others may verify or dis-confirm any interpreted
results.
Disseminating the surveys and administering the interviews annually would add depth to the design. The
ability of future researchers to tap into a rich information vein built over time could assist in determining
trends, tendencies, and stagnation. This data, once subjected to careful empirical scrutiny, would then be
useful to not only political science, but also to the power players in the political game themselves.
Allowing for restrictions due to data-gathering, problems of validity, and coding reliability, I propose
my model as presented can be tested quantitatively. From such tests we can move studies of leadership
forward into empirical social science. Moving these studies forward allows us then to move from postdictive explanation into a public arena of predictive prescription. Such utility gives to party and interest
group leaders the necessary tools to facilitate more effective followership mechanisms, management
styles, and leadership powers. This pragmatic application thusly is a motivating factor for parties,
groups, and individuals to apply the lessons here to a process of survey administration that in turn
empirically supports this research.
About the Author
W.T. Casey is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University at Texarkana.
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