Partisan and Bipartisan Signaling in Congress
Posted: 10 Sep 1998
Abstract
Gilligan and Krebbiel (1989) analyse bipartisanship in committees through a model in which committee ideal points are exactly symmetric about the floor's ideal point. This article has three objectives: it shows that the Gilligan and Krebbiel equilibrium does not generalize to asymmetric committee members; it proves that a similar equilibrium can be supported when the majority party committee member has gatekeeping power; and it compares this equilibrium to the one-signaler case to show that when partisan differences over policy are small, or when the uncertainty associated with a policy area is large, bipartisanship will be preferred to partisan policy making.
JEL Classification: D72
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation