Perpetuating the Pork Barrel: Policy Subsystems and American Democracy

Stein and Bickers explore the policy subsystems–links among members of Congress, interest groups, government agencies–that blanket the American political landscape. They employ a new data base detailing federal outlays to Congressional districts for each federal program to examine four myths about the impact of policy subsystems on American government: that policy subsystems are a major contributor to the federal deficit, that federal programs grow and rarely die, that subsystem actors seek to universalize the scope of program benefits, and that the flow of program benefits to constituencies ensures legislators’ reelection.