Public Choice 120: 221–224, 2004. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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Book reviews
Barry C. Burden (Ed.), Uncertainty in American politics. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, viii + 257 pages. USD 23.00 (paper). This edited volume contains nine chapters, dealing with uncertainty in politics. The book takes a scattershot approach to the subject, and the chapters are on very different topics. Generally, the first half of the book considers uncertainty and its influence on political institutions. The remainder of the book considers how uncertainty influences elections and citizens. Because uncertainty is an underutilized concept in the study of politics, this book can provide a very useful introduction to many scholars. In fact, the broad scope of this book offers the reader a chance to consider many aspects of uncertainty. A book like this is useful for a student seeking to formulate research ideas. The reader likely will see how an approach taken to one topic applies to other topics as well – these other topics may be the ones discussed in the book or topics the reader is already working on. Because of the disparate nature of the chapters, I have outlined the main arguments made in each chapter to give the reader of this review a taste of what is in the book. In chapter 1, Dickinson considers uncertainty with respect to a president’s reelection, as well as with respect to the president’s ability to achieve public policy goals. In particular, he argues that the better a president’s negotiating ability, the less uncertainty he faces about his reelection or about his ability to enact favorable legislation. Unfortunately for the more recent presidents, bargaining has become much more difficult, mostly because chief executives have had to negotiate with increasing numbers of people. Dickinson maintains that to enable bargaining with more people, presidents have steadily increased the White House staff since 1940. Consider elections first. Until 1968, a presidential candidate only had to deal with a few party leaders to secure the nomination. After 1968, candidates had to win primaries, which meant they had to negotiate with significantly more people – such as the media, and even individual voters. Further, in the general election, the secular decline in the importance of parties left candid-
222 ates with the chore of dealing with various interest groups directly, instead of dealing with them indirectly through the party. Even when governing, the president has had to deal with more people to get his policies through Congress. In 1940, the president could meet with a few congressional leaders who could negotiate on behalf of Congress. Over time, power has been dispersed and subcommittee chairmen, not just committee chairmen, are powerful, leaving the president with more people to negotiate with. Also, congressional leaders now have more trouble getting the rank and file to do their bidding. Incumbents have developed some real advantages, separate from party identification, in their reelection attempts. With their reelection less dependent on the party, individual members are more likely to go against the wishes of party leaders. Because party leaders cannot deliver floor votes, presidents often bypass Congress and appeal directly to voters and interest groups in the hope that voters will apply pressure on their congressmen to vote a certain way on a bill. With presidents appealing directly to voters, interest groups, and the media, they have greatly increased the number of people they are trying to influence in order to get reelected or to get a policy adopted. To do this, presidents hire pollsters and media consultants to help them fashion messages to voters. They also hire specialists to help them comply with the election finance laws of the 1970s. Dickinson contends that the addition of all of these specialists has been responsible for the growth in the White House Office. In chapter 2, Vanden Bergh and de Figueiredo consider the uncertainty created by regular elections. They note that when current elected officials in the executive and legislative branches have similar preferences and they expect that future elected officials will also be like-minded, the government will not wish to adopt strict guidelines for agencies to follow. Extensive guidelines reduce the flexibility agencies have when they are faced with new circumstances. However, when like-minded branches of government believe that future elected officials will not share their beliefs, then the government will pass a statute, guiding the agency in detail, and spelling out directions for what the agency can and cannot do. The current government is willing to accept the costs of future agency inflexibility in return for the gain they receive from agencies adhering to their guidelines, after new officials are elected who have different preferences. In chapter 3, Krause takes issue with previous research that tries to identify a congressional committee’s ability to successfully oversee a bureaucratic agency. Up until now, scholars have identified a committee’s policy preference with a central tendency such as the median position of committee members. The positions of committee members are typically captured with ideology scores derived from roll call votes.
223 Krause argues that researchers should consider uncertainty inherent in a signal from a congressional committee to a bureau. Uncertainty in this case is captured with the dispersion of committee member preferences. Bureaus are less sure of a signal coming from a committee with diffuse policy preferences and more certain of a signal coming from a committee with members who have similar policy preferences. With this uncertainty, an agency is less likely to follow the signals they do receive. Diverse preferences of committee members also allow an agency the opportunity to play committee members off amongst themselves, leaving the agency more able to follow the policies that suit the agency rather than those that suit the median member of the committee. In chapter 4, O’Toole and Meier note that bureaucracy is often thought of as a way to reduce uncertainty, establishing an island of predictability in the face of an unpredictable environment. The authors identify several sources of uncertainty that agencies face. They also discuss the many options the decision makers have in the face of the uncertainty. In particular, reducing uncertainty has its costs and benefits and it should only be reduced when there is a net benefit from doing so. In chapter 5, Jones, Talbert and Potoski look at uncertainty in the political debate. They note that when people make decisions, they often collapse a multidimensional problem down to a single dimension. How this is done can create uncertainty, and the act of reducing the dimensions of a choice can reduce uncertainty. The authors go onto to analyze the legislative process, which takes multidimensional decisions at the stage when bills are reported and reduces these decisions down to a single dimension by the time there is a roll call vote. In chapter 6, Geer and Goorha point out that the amount of uncertainty in politics varies because the amount of information a decision-maker can readily obtain changes. In particular, they note that the president’s ability to gauge public opinion has improved over time. Long ago, presidents had to guess the public’s preferences from very imprecise means such as reading newspapers. Today, presidents use polls to more accurately know what the public thinks. The reduced uncertainty about public opinion has changed the office of the president in many ways. Presidents are more likely to follow public opinion on the issues the public really cares about, and they are more likely to defy public opinion, and possibly satisfy an interest group, on issues that the public cares little about. Presidents are better able to identify the issues that they should take directly to American people, bypassing Congress. Presidential candidates who use polls to craft platforms will have an increased advantage because polling information has become a superior way of measuring the
224 public’s attitudes. Candidates who do not respond to polls do so at their own electoral risk. In chapter 7, Alvarez, Brehm and Wilson analyze survey data to uncover people’s policy preferences. They find that uncertainty can explain why people take different positions on a set of issues. They pick four policy positions and find that the variance in choices among issues by a particular person is lower when that person is better informed. In chapter 8, Maestas notes that incumbents spend a lot of time worrying about reelection even when the odds that they will lose are very small. To explain this she draws on Frank Knight’s (1921) distinction between risk and uncertainty. With Knightian risk, a decision-maker can assign probabilities to future events. When considering risk alone, an incumbent does seem to be placing too much effort on reelection attempts. However, she argues that incumbents may be responding to uncertainty not risk. Knightian uncertainty is when the decision-maker does not know the probabilities of future actions. A risk-averse politician may think that his reelection chances are much smaller than they actually are. Maestas then goes on to argue that a lot of incumbent behavior, besides reelection efforts, can be explained by considering an incumbent’s electoral uncertainty rather than an incumbent’s electoral risk. In chapter 9, Hajnal argues that white voters face more uncertainty over black challengers than they do over white challengers. These voters fear that a black will implement pro-black and anti-white policies, such as redistributing income. However, after a black candidate is elected, the white electorate can judge the incumbent on his record and their racial fears become much less important in explaining their votes. Overall, this is an interesting book. Several of the chapters are excellent and thought-provoking, making this book a worthwhile read for those interested in how uncertainty fits into the study of politics.
J OSEPH P. M C G ARRITY, Economics, Burdick Business Building, 201 Donaghey Avenue, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR 72035, U.S.A.
References Knight, F.H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty and profit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
