Legislatures: Rational Systems or Rational Myths?
本文运用组织理论视角，挑战理性选择理论对立法机构组织的解释，通过分析1985至1994年国会委员会的信息使用，论证组织理论能提供更深入的见解。
This article addresses a gap in the literature on legislatures as organizations. Organization theory has focused on private firms. Theories of public organization have focused on bureaucracies. Political scientists use formal, rational choice models to study legislative institutions but are primarily interested in explaining individual, not organizational behavior. I suggest that organization theory, applied to legislatures, can provide some useful insights beyond the rational choice approaches predominant in political science. I apply an organization theory perspective, which I call interpretive theory, to engage the current debate among rational choice theorists over whether legislative organization is driven by member interest in policy outcomes or in political positioning—an argument most elaborately presented by Keith Krehbiel's information theory. I present an empirical analysis of information use by congressional committees from 1985 to 1994 to challenge Krehbiel's view and to suggest the utility of the organization theory perspective.