Institutional Change and Legislative Performance: A Study of Changes in Two State Legislatures by the State Legislative Leaders Foundation

摘要

The first stage of a new State Legislative Leaders Foundation (SLLF) understanding of legislative change and its impact upon performance is reported. It represents a comprehensive, detailed examination of the effects of legislative change in the states of Iowa and Wisconsin over twelve years. The project seeks to discern if there were the expected improvements, differentiating between the effects of various types of reforms, and to assess the impact of change upon the effectiveness of legislatures and policies enacted by their legislators. It combines both theoretical and applied interests, but focuses on the latter. A macrolevel theory is tested regarding the effects of change in a legislature's organization on the subsequent performance of the legislature in its processing effectiveness of policy decisions and the nature of policy decisions made by the legislature. The effects of policy decisions and the outcomes of these policies also are investigated. Included are a legislative processing model, research strategy, data collection, change in the legislatures 1967-1978 bivariate and multivariate analyses, policy area case studies, and utilization of the completed part of the project.