Taking on the world: The international activities of American state legislatures

Publius: The Journal of Federalism

Volumn 34, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 183-199

  Conlan, Timothy J ^a   Dudley, Robert L ^a   Clark, Joel F ^b  

^a GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 22544469437     PISSN: 00485950     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubjof.a005036     Document Type: Review

References (57)

1. Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, "Unraveling the Central State, but How? Types of Multi-level Governance," American Political Science Review 97 (May 2003): 233-243.
2. Christopher Garman, Stephan Haggard, and Eliza Willis, "Fiscal Decentralization: A Political Theory with Latin American Cases," World Politics 53 (October 2000): 205-236;
3. Anwar Shah, "Fiscal Decentralization in Developing and Transition Economies: Progress, Problems, and the Promise," World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, No. 3282, April 2004.
4. Douglas M. Brown, "Provinces have a role in Canadian Foreign Policy," Federations (August 2002): 12.
5. See Richard Deeg, "Economic Globalization and the Shifting Boundaries of German Federalism," Publius: The Journal of Federalism 26 (Winter 1996): 27-52;
6. Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, "'Europe with the Regions': Channels of Regional Representation in the European Union," Publius: The Journal of Federalism 26 (Winter 1996): 73-91;
7. Alexei S. Avtonomov, "Border Issues, Regional Aspirations and Realism in the Russian Federation," Federations (August 2002): 16.
8. Timothy Conlan, From New Federalism to Devolution: Twenty-Five Years of Intergovernmental Reform (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998).
9. See, for example, Earl H. Fry, The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in U.S. Foreign Affairs (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998);
10. John Kincaid, "The International Competence of US States and Their Local Governments," Federal and Regional Studies 9 (Spring 1999): 111-130;
11. David Naftzger, "The States' Role (if any) in Foreign Affairs," State Legislatures 26 (December 2000): 24.
12. See Michelle Sager, One Voice or Many? Federalism and International Trade (New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2002);
13. John M. Kline, "The International Economic Interests of U.S. States," Publius: The Journal of Federalism 14 (Fall 1984): 81-94.
14. Chris Whatley, State Official's Guide to International Affairs (Washington, DC: Council of State Governments, 2003), pp. 49-51;
15. Adrienne T. Edisis, Global Activities by U.S. States: Findings of a Survey of State Government International Activities (Washington, DC: George Washington University, 2003), p. 2.
16. See, for example, John Kincaid, "The American Governors in International Affairs," Publius: The Journal of Federalism 14 (Fall 1984): 95-114.
17. Keith Boeckelman, "Federal Systems in the Global Economy: Research Issues," Publius: The Journal of Federalism 26 (Winter 1996): 8.
18. The states were California, Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, and Minnesota.
19. Three states, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia, hold their legislative elections in off-years, so the period under study includes portions of two different legislative sessions for these states.
20. House Bill 3031, 2002 (Minnesota).
21. HR 143, 2001 (Texas).
22. House Bill 38, 2001 (Virginia).
23. Assembly bill A880, 2002 (New Jersey).
24. HF3733, 2002 (Minnesota).
25. SB 945, 2001 (California).
26. Senate Bill 195, 2001 (Texas).
27. House Concurrent Resolution 37, 2002 (West Virginia).
28. House Bill 2261, 2001 (Massachusetts).
29. For analyses of similar volatility in the legislative agenda of Congress, see Anthony Downs, "Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue Attention Cycle," The Public Interest 28 (Summer 1972): 38-50;
30. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
31. Barry Rabe, Greenhouse and Statehouse: The Evolving State Government Role in Climate Change (Arlington, VA: Pew Center on Global Climate Change, 2002), p. 7.
32. See, for example, Richard E. Dawson and James A. Robinson, "Interparty Competition, Economic Variables, and Welfare Policies in the American States," Journal of Politics 25 (May 1963): 265-289;
33. Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966);
34. Michael Lewis-Beck, "The Relative Importance of Socioeconomic and Political Variables for Public Policy," American Political Science Review 71 (June 1977): 559-565;
35. Robert S. Erikson, Gerald C. Wright, Jr., and John McIver, Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993);
36. Sarah McCalley Morehouse, State Politics, Parties, and Policy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983).
37. For example, see Ann O'M Bowman and Richard C. Kearney, "Dimensions of State Government Capability," Western Political Quarterly 41 (June 1988): 341-362;
38. Christopher Mooney, "Citizens, Structures, and Sister States: Influences on State Legislative Professionalism," Legislative Studies Quarterly 20 (Spring 1995): 47-67;
39. Christopher Mooney, "Measuring U.S. State Legislative Professionalism: An Evaluation of Five Indexes," Slate and Local Government Review 26 (Spring 1994): 70-78;
40. Alan Rosenthal, "Is the Party Over? Trends in State Legislative Parties," Spectrum: The Journal of State Government 73 (Fall 2000): 5-9;
41. Gary Moncrief, Joel A. Thompson, and William Cassie, "Revisiting the State of U.S. State Legislative Research," Legislative Studies Quarterly 21 (Summer 1996): 301-335;
42. Peverill Squire, "Another Look at Legislative Professionalism and Divided Government in the States," Legislative Studies Quarterly 22 (August 1997): 417-432.
43. Peverill Squire, "Uncontested Seats in State Legislative Elections," Legislative Studies Quarterly 25 (Spring 2000): 131-146.
44. In this model N=45 because we have eliminated our five case-study states from the analysis. In each of our case studies, our counts of bills introduced and passed were increased somewhat beyond our Lexis-Nexis totals because of supplemental findings from the states' own legislative databases. Although the differences were generally not substantial, we removed them from this analysis to enhance the consistency of our data. In addition, in the three cases where legislative elections are held in off years, we used the mean number of bills introduced because the session data was overlapping. We could have eliminated these states from the analysis as well, but elimination does not significantly alter the role of the indicator variables, nor does it significantly change the F or the R2 of the model.
45. PoliticaI party is a dummy variable with the highest value assigned to Republican control of the legislature.
46. The fact that this weak, non-significant relationship also assumes a negative sign in this and other multivariate models suggests the limitations of cross-sectional analysis in understanding the relationship between professionalism and legislative activity. Highly professionalized state legislatures may have engaged more actively in international activity at an earlier stage, and we may now be seeing less professionalized legislatures catching up. For example, we found that while simple correlation between Squire's professionalism measure and number of foreign affairs bills introduced is only .211 for the 2001-2002 period, the correlation was .493, and significant at the .01 level, for the 1995-1996 period. This suggests the need for careful time-series analysis to properly study this relationship.
47. We also tested several geographic features of the states. In models not reported here, we created dummy variables to reflect the states' location as border or coastal states. In no model did these dummy variables produce significant coefficients. Moreover, adding these variables to the equations did not significantly increase the explanatory power of the models.
48. Clive Thomas and Ronald Hrebnar, "Interest Groups in the States," Politics in the American States, eds., Virginia Gray, Russell Hanson, and Herbert Jacob, 7th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1999).
49. Armenian National Institute, International Affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, www.armenian-genocide.org.
50. See Elizabeth Benjamin, "Activists Air Plans to Fight Warming," TimesUnion.com, 21 November 2002;
51. Rabe, Greenhouse and Statehouse.
52. ID Cards Offer Peace of Mind," CalifornianOnline.com, 26 November 2002.
53. California Senate Select Committee on International Trade Policy and State Legislation and Washington State's Task Force on International Trade Agreements and the Role of the State.
54. See, for example, Minnesota S.B 3468, "Memorializing the President, Congress and the Governor to Ensure that International Trade Agreements Respect the Traditional Authority of State and Local Governments to Protect the Public Interest," which passed the state Senate in 2002.
55. See Sager, One Voice or Many? pp. 20-22;
56. Timothy J. Conlan and Michelle A. Sager, International Dimensions of American Federalism: State Policy Responses to a Changing Global Environment (Washington, DC: U.S.-Asia Environmental Partnership and Council of State Governments, 1997).
57. Franz Gress, "Interstate Cooperation and Territorial Representation in Intermestic Politics," Publius: The Journal of Federalism 2.6 (Winter 1996): 53-72.