With political polarization in the United States leading to widespread legislative gridlock, the nation is in dire need of instruments to encourage legislators to cooperate with their colleagues regardless of partisan affiliation. This research will investigate how Congress’ ban on earmarks might have affected the tendency of legislators to vote in favor of bills that are not supported by their parties. Earmarks are commonly understood to act as a form of inducement through which legislators can gain electoral benefits within their constituencies in exchange for their cooperation with Congressional leadership. I expected that the presence of more earmarks in a bill would increase the tendency of legislators to back bills that are not supported by their parties. I employ multivariate regression to compare the relationship between the number of earmarks in appropriations bills and the rate at which legislators defected from their party’s position on roll call votes taken. This information is available for bills introduced between 2008 when the rule mandating the declaration of earmark requests went into effect, and 2010 when the ban was enacted. If the data supports this hypothesis then my work will imply that the ban should be repealed to reduce the negative effects of legislative gridlock. If no relationship is apparent; however, it will represent a significant indicator that earmarks in their most recent form provide no benefit beyond the enrichment of the legislators themselves, which would suggest that the ban on earmarks should be maintained.

Budget policy in the United States is not uniform across agencies, with some budgets subject to cuts year after year. This research looks to answer why some agencies are more affected by budget cuts. I theorize that differences are explained by the politicization of the agency’s function. Specifically, I emphasize the role of neoliberalism, a political ideology which promotes fiscal and moral conservatism, as well as laissez-faire approaches to government. This presentation hypothesizes that subfunctions that have roles which conflict with neoliberal values, such as those pertaining to education, training, and social services, will experience non-incremental budget decreases more frequently than subfunctions that reflect greater neoliberal values. To test this theory, annual appropriations data for 64 subfunctions was collected, resulting in a database of budget outcomes from 1977 to 2018. Preliminary multivariate regression models suggest that while a subfunction’s “neoliberalness” has some effect on the magnitude of budget cuts, specific subfunctions can experience budget patterns that are not explained by neoliberalism alone. This research adds to existing policy literature by exploring the intricacies of budget-making that have previously been dismissed as chaos.

The United States military is a massive proponent for airstrikes and utilizes them in place of ground forces. Although people expect airstrikes to increase precision and reduce civilian casualties, military conflicts continue to last for years. Nevertheless, the United States continues to rely on airstrikes as a principle strategy despite prolonged military conflicts. It is puzzling why the United States would transform military strategy to include a heavy reliance on airstrikes despite few indicators showing its success as a strategy. This research paper examines whether U.S. airstrikes reduce the magnitude- or the total civilian casualties- resulting from military conflicts. I expect to find that airstrikes increase civilian casualties and theorize that the use of these strikes is more for domestic favorability than any military benefit. I explore this expectation by using multiple regression analyses on wartime data from the Iraq War and the Syrian Conflict. I analyze the United States' use of ground forces during the Iraq War and its use of airstrikes during the Syrian Conflict, all while controlling for other actors and forces within these conflicts. This analysis provides insight into the capabilities of drone strikes as a means of ending conflict. 

The effects lobbying has on Congressional voting has been debated for a long time. Despite scholars’ consistent findings that there is no relationship between campaign contributions and a legislator’s vote, special interest groups continue to routinely contribute money to members of Congress. In this project, I consider the connection between contributions from the finance industry and failed legislative efforts aiming at regulating Wall Street or providing greater financial consumer protections. I employ multivariate regression analysis to examine lobbying contributions to individual members of Congress and their subsequent roll call votes in Congressional sessions during 2009-2018. I test for an explicit connection between the finance industry’s lobbying contributions and the inability for Congress to pass financial reforms post-2008. Since campaign finance plays a vital role in the ability for a politician to be elected to office, I expect to find that a congressperson receiving contributions from the finance industry will be inclined to vote in favor of those interests. The findings from this research contribute to the conversation of the influence of big money in American politics and the influence those interests have on specific legislation.