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Taking the Measure of Congress: Reply to Chiou and Rothenberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2008

Sarah A. Binder
Sarah A. Binder*
Affiliation:
The Brookings Institution and George Washington University, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036, e-mail: binder@gwu.edu
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Abstract

Chiou and Rothenberg raise important questions about how to measure key concepts in the study of legislative stalemate in the U.S. Congress. In challenging my choice of measures to capture bicameral differences, Chiou and Rothenberg argue that my findings are the artifact of measurement error. In this reply, I review the hurdles involved in measuring policy views over time and across institutions and suggest that the preferred measure of Chiou and Rothenberg falls short for measuring bicameral differences. Second, I assess the extent to which measurement choices affect the robustness of my findings about the determinants of gridlock. Drawing on new measures and model specifications, I show that my results are robust to alternative specifications. I conclude with an assessment of the broader challenges posed by how we measure critical concepts in the study of congressional performance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Spring 2008 , pp. 213 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

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