Cue the dancing founders – “Connecicut! Connecticut! …” - oh, wait this is about Roger Sherman’s behavior at that big political convention in 1787, not the one in 1776. Sorry.
To me, the most interesting thing in the May 2006 issue of the American Political Science Review is a brief forum comprising two articles on the role played by Roger Sherman at the Constitutional Convention. In the first Keith Dougherty and Jac Heckelman suggest that Roger Sherman’s role in the convention has been overstated somewhat, and that a large part of why he was influential in that body was that he was a pivotal member from a pivotal state. They argue that if this hadn’t been the case Sherman would likely have had less of an impact on the convention (yes, you and I can file this away in the file marked “perfectly obvious”, but they make their point with spatial models, and who doesn’t love spatial models?).
The real gem is the following piece by David Brian Robertson. He politely notes that the work the previous authors were critiquing was investigating rather different matters, and he uses his six pages to make a good case for methodological pluralism. While doing this he brings up several fundamental flaws that infest far too much research involving voting behavior (though Dougherty and Heckelman’s work is even more problematic than usual in that they build their spatial models from Sherman’s voting behavior in Congress, not the Constitutional Convention, a completely different body), and renews William Riker’s call for more research into “heresthetics” (political manipulation – framing, the sequencing of votes, things like that). This last point is one that’s always stuck me as vital to keep in mind when studying politicians and political bodies (especially legislators and legislatures) and I’m pleased whenever it gets its due in the APSR.
Posted by armand at June 2, 2006 11:44 PM | TrackBack | Posted to The AcademySomebody published a study that "proved" that if Roger Sherman had been less influential, he would have had less influence on the convention?
Clearly I made the wrong career choice.
Posted by: jacflash at June 3, 2006 08:41 AM | PERMALINKWell what they were really getting at was challenging the notion that Sherman was a central player at the convention because of his unique persuasion skills and the possibility that he was one of the median voters there.
The authors found that unlike others like Edmund Randolph he (like Madison) wasn't especially good at getting a lot of his amendments approved, and from their analysis of the delegates using spatial models he wasn't a median voter in the convention as a whole. But what he was, according to their models, was a swing voter in a swing state. So they their point was that to the extent he was a key player in the convention, a lot of that role was driven by the voting rules of the convention and the most fundamental ideological splits that divided the state delegations.
Of course the Robertson piece comes back and challenges some of these authors' apparent assumptions about the previous work on Sherman - but that seems to be the idea. That his influence had much to do with voting procedures and how the states divided themelves on fundamental ideological issues - and less to do with his basic political skills or his position as a median voter at the convention.
Posted by: Armand at June 3, 2006 09:18 AM | PERMALINK