Political Dynasty

 

RATIONALE

It is widely known that institutional structures constrain the actions of elected officials, For example example,, electora electorall systems systems produc produce e incenti incentives ves that induce elected elected officia officials ls to represent certain constituencies and to allocate particular types of resources (Persson and Tabellini, 200!" #ther types of institutional features (e"$", the forms of $overnment, and the incentives de$ree of for decentrali%ation! have also been shown to produce si$nificantly different elected officials, which would result in different policy outcomes (&i'phart, )))! &ess is known about how the types of elected officials affect policy choices" *s +esley (200! and -ones and #lken (200! point out, implicit in most of the previous work is the assumption that politicians act in a similar fashion under a certain institutional rule, no matter who they are" In other words, previous research ne$lects the possibility that the persona pers onall charact characteris eristics tics of politici politicians ans also constra constrain in their their acti actions ons in the democrat democratic ic policy.makin$ process, which then affect policies" *s /ey ()), 0! notes, 1the nature of the workin$ of $overnment depends ultimately on the men who run it" The men we elect to office and the circumstances we create that affect their work determine the nature of popular $overnment" Politi Poli tici cian ans s diff differ er alon alon$ $ a vari variet ety y of dime dimens nsio ions ns such such as thei theirr pref prefer eren ence ces s and and compete comp etence nce (+esley (+esley,, 200!" 200!" Previous Previous researc research h has found found that policy policy preferen preferences ces reflected in a politician3s identity such as $ender and race are associated with particular  policy choices (4hattopadhyay and 5u6o, 2007 &ublin, ))8!" The personal ideolo$y of  the members of 9":" 4on$ress plays a pivotal role in their roll.call votin$ patterns (&evitt, ));!" The political competence of politicians refers to the ability to achieve desired policies at a minimum social cost (4aselli and ;2228Eputtin$.end.political.dynasties

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