Papers by Jeffery Jenkins
3. The Early Reconstruction Era, 1865–1871
University of Chicago Press eBooks, 2021
6. The Wilderness Years, 1891–1918
University of Chicago Press eBooks, 2021
Toward a Modern Southern Strategy, 1933–1968
The Rise and Fall of a Republican South, 1865–1877
5. The Redemption Era, 1877–1891
University of Chicago Press eBooks, 2021
The System of 1896 and Republicanism in the South, 1897–1932
Scholarship on presidential distributive politics focuses exclusively on federal domestic spendin... more Scholarship on presidential distributive politics focuses exclusively on federal domestic spending—however, since the early 20th Century, the president has had substantial discretion to adjust tariff schedules “with the stroke of a pen.” We study the politics of unilateral action in the area of U.S. trade policy, investigating import adjustments in presidential directives between 1917-2012. We find that presidents—in accordance with electoral incentives—strategically allocate trade protections to industries in states that benefit their party. In general, states in which the president lacks a comfortable electoral majority are systematically more likely to receive protectionist unilateral orders. In sum, our results show that the president’s distributive imperative extends into the realm of foreign affairs, an arena in which the president has substantial authority to influence public policy.
Public Choice, 2018
During the 1830s, Congress passed a series of laws reforming U.S. policy on acquiring public land... more During the 1830s, Congress passed a series of laws reforming U.S. policy on acquiring public lands. These laws established a federal land policy of preemption, under which squatters on public land obtained legal title to it in exchange for payment of a minimum (and low) price per acre. Preemption significantly liberalized the terms of land ownership in the U.S. We analyze roll call voting on the preemption acts in Congress from a distributive politics perspective. The key finding is that a member's region of the country consistently adds explanatory power on top of that provided by ideology or party: members of Congress from the original thirteen states were less supportive of preemption on Western lands, all else constant. Moreover, this effect is much stronger in the House of Representatives than in the Senate. This is inconsistent with explanations of a West-South coalition vs. the North often found in the historical literature, but is consistent with a distributive politics perspective based on rent seeking by Western landholders.
Political Science Research and Methods, 2017
Research on presidential distributive politics focuses almost exclusively on federal domestic spe... more Research on presidential distributive politics focuses almost exclusively on federal domestic spending. Yet, presidential influence on public policy extends well-beyond grant allocation. Since the early 20th Century, for example, the president has had substantial discretion to adjust tariff schedules and non-tariff barriers “with the stroke of a pen.” These trade adjustments via presidential directive allow us to test the logic of presidential particularism in an area of policy understudied among presidency scholars. We examine unilateral adjustments to US trade policies between 1917 and 2006, with a detailed analysis of those made between 1986 and 2006, and find that presidents—in accordance with electoral incentives—strategically allocate trade protections to industries in politically valuable states. In general, states in which the president lacks a comfortable electoral majority are systematically more likely to receive protectionist unilateral orders. Overall, our results show ...
Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2016
While a number of studies have examined the politics of tariff decision-making in the United Stat... more While a number of studies have examined the politics of tariff decision-making in the United States, little work has examined the subsequent political effects of tariff policy. We help fill this gap in the literature by analyzing—both theoretically and empirically—the electoral implications of tariff revision. Specifically, we investigate the veracity of the Cannon Thesis—the proposition advanced by Speaker Joe Cannon in 1910 that the majority party in the U.S. House was punished when it made major revisions to the tariff. We find that from 1877 to 1934 major tariff revisions were, on average, associated with a significant loss of votes for majority-party members—both regionally and nationally—that translated into a loss of House seats. We find support for the notion that major tariff revisions generated inordinate uncertainty among various business interests, which the opposition party could then use (by leveraging fear and market instability) to mobilize its base and gain ground i...
Who Should Govern Congress? The Salary Grab of 1873 and the Coalition of Reform
ipr.northwestern.edu
... Lee J. Alston Department of Economics and Institute of Behavioral Sciences University of Colo... more ... Lee J. Alston Department of Economics and Institute of Behavioral Sciences University of Colorado Research Associate, NBER Kara Gorski Analysis Group Tomas Nonnenmacher Department of Economics Allegheny College ...
The Journal of Economic History, 2006
We examine the politics of the "Salary Grab" of 1873, legislation that increased congressional sa... more We examine the politics of the "Salary Grab" of 1873, legislation that increased congressional salaries retroactively by 50 percent. A group of New England and Midwestern elites opposed the Salary Grab, along with congressional franking and patronage-based civil service appointments, as part of reform effort to reshape "who should govern Congress." Our analyses of congressional voting confirm the existence of this non-party elite coalition. While these elites lost many legislative battles in the short-run, their efforts kept reform on the legislative agenda throughout the late-nineteenth century and ultimately set the stage for the Progressive movement in the early-twentieth century.
Congress and the Political Economy of the Indian Removal Act
Journal of historical political economy, 2023
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Papers by Jeffery Jenkins