ABSTRACT

This paper proposes congressional scholars reexamine biennial measures in their research. It argues two-year measures, while providing important insight on legislative behaviour in Congress over the past five decades, are both methodologically regressive and conceptually impractical. Not only is this measurement practice insensitive to the vibrant political life that marks American politics over the course of a two-year period, it is prone to numerous measurement shortcomings when compared against refined metrics such as annual, quarterly, and monthly data. To demonstrate these deficiencies, this paper explores the conceptual and methodological limitations of biennial measures.

摘要

本文建议国会学者在他们的研究中重新审视两年一度的措施。它认为，两年的措施虽然提供了对过去 50 年国会立法行为的重要见解，但在方法上和概念上都是不切实际的。这种衡量实践不仅对标志着两年期间美国政治的充满活力的政治生活不敏感，而且与年度、季度和月度数据等精细指标相比，它容易出现许多衡量缺陷。为了证明这些缺陷，本文探讨了双年度措施的概念和方法局限性。