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2. Solutions to Informational Collective Action Dilemmas: Theorizing the Benefits of Legislative Member Organizations
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18 chapter 2 Solutions to Informational Collective Action Dilemmas: Theorizing the Benefits of Legislative Member Organizations Across the clusters in an organization or market, creativity is a diffusion process of repeated discovery in which a good idea is carried across structural holes to be discovered in one cluster of people, rediscovered in another, then rediscovered in still others—and each discovery is no less an experience of creativity for people encountering the good idea. Thus, value accumulates as an idea moves through the social structure; each transmission from one group to another has the potential to add value. (Burt 2004, 389) In this chapter we lay out our argument about the role and value of legislative member organizations (LMOs) in legislative politics. We propose that LMOs allow legislators to build relationships with each other and that the social networks composed of these relationships provide for an efficient exchange of high-quality information inside the chamber. LMOs thus help mitigate what we identify to be an important institutional collective action dilemma (Feiock and Scholz 2010): the great demand and inadequate supply of policy-relevant information in legislative politics. The voluntary nature of LMOs plays a crucial role in this regard. It entails a number of advantages over the formal legislative institutions of parties and committees. First, LMO participation is cheap; lawmakers can determine their own level of involvement without threat of sanction. Hence, they can reap the informational benefits of LMOs while incurring only those transaction costs considered appropriate. Second, as voluntary institutions without a formal role in the legislative process, LMOs do not threaten the stability of the formal institutional framework. Accordingly, parties and committees have little incentive to compete with LMOs for leg- Solutions to Informational Collective Action Dilemmas 19 islators’ time and efforts or to undermine the LMO system as a whole. Rather, parties and committees can reap the benefits that LMOs provide. Third, LMOs are flexible institutions that can readily be adjusted to meet their members’ needs, primarily because the issue scope of LMOs is open: LMOs can be set up to address any cause or issue lawmakers consider a policy priority. Finally, voluntary membership in LMOs entails that they are heterogeneous institutions composed of members from multiple parties and committees who share common policy priorities and substantive interests. Ties between LMO members, therefore, combine to form extensive social networks that cut across party lines and committee jurisdictions. These social networks offer important opportunities for discussion, collaboration, and cosponsorship but most importantly for the exchange of policy-relevant information. Building on classic insights from social network analysis, we emphasize the importance of weak ties between legislators that span structural holes in the legislative network for the diffusion of information throughout the legislature. According to Granovetter (1973), individuals benefit more from being affiliated with acquaintances (through weak ties) than with close friends (through strong ties), as the closely tied social circles that are prevalent in most social contexts are connected through weak ties. Without such weak ties, these social circles would be isolated from one another, and information would not be diffused efficiently beyond tightly knit social groups. Weak, cross-cutting ties therefore provide individuals with access to otherwise unattainable information and make all members of the network better informed (Burt 1992, 2000, 2004). Yet weak ties are significant not only because they tend to be bridging. They also contribute to the low transaction costs associated with LMO participation since weak ties are inexpensive to create and maintain. Another factor that contributes to the low-cost nature of LMOs is that they are often associated with actors and organizations outside of the legislature itself. These outside organizations carry many of the costs associated with running LMOs, thus allowing legislators to free-ride on their benefits. Ties with outsiders also have an informational component, because interest groups provide both substantive and political information to lawmakers, and LMOs provide an incentive structure that increases the quality and utility of this information: Outsiders associated with particular LMOs enjoy institutionalized , privileged access to groups of legislators who share their concern for a given issue or cause, which lawmakers can threaten to revoke if [3.138.125.2] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 23:00 GMT) 20 bridging the information gap the information provided is not of sufficient quality to help them make more informed policy choices. In sum, LMOs are inexpensive, voluntary institutions that encourage the inflow of high-utility information from outside the legislature and facilitate the efficient diffusion of this...