In the latest contribution to the Democracy Papers, Sarah E. Anderson, Daniel Butler, and Laurel Harbridge-Yong discuss the importance of closed-door negotiations for successful legislative compromise. Using experimental data collected from state legislators, the authors demonstrate that lawmakers expect private negotiations to result in successful compromises more often than public negotiations. These results are part of a project funded through the Anxieties of Democracy “Negotiating Agreement in Congress” grants program.
Daniel M. Butler
Daniel M. Butler is an associate professor of political science at University of California, San Diego. His research uses experiments to understand representation. His work has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. Butler received a Negotiating Agreement in Congress (NAC) research grant in 2016–2017 for a project titled "Beyond Ideological Disagreement: Obstacles to Compromise" as part of the Anxieties of Democracy program.