Back on Track

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Abstract
Challenging conventional wisdom, which suggests that constituency interests and membership ideology guide legislative voting on trade, we argue that the relative importance of these factors fluctuates depending on party control of the presidency. Such is the casewith the House of Representatives opposing fast-track trade negotiating authority in 1997 and 1998 and then supporting trade-promotion authority in 2001. The shifting political context represented by the change in partisan control of the presidency changed the salience of ideology and constituency factors among House Republicans, leading to major trade policy changes. Using logit analysis for position taking in the House on fast track, we explore the relative effects of a variety of cross pressures on trade policy preferences across time.