Administrative bodies, not legislatures, are the primary lawmakers in our society. This book develops a theory to explain this fact based on the concept of trust. Drawing upon Law, History and Social Science, Edward H. Stiglitz argues that a fundamental problem of trust pervades representative institutions in complex societies. Due to information problems that inhere to complex societies, the public often questions whether the legislature is acting on their behalf-or is instead acting on the behalf of narrow, well-resourced concerns. Administrative bodies, as constrained by administrative law, promise procedural regularity and relief from aspects of these information problems. This book addresses fundamental questions of why our political system takes the form that it does, and why administrative bodies proliferated in the Progressive Era. Using novel experiments, it empirically supports this theory and demonstrates how this vision of the state clarifies prevailing legal and policy debates.

"The Reputational Premium" presents a new theory of party identification, the central concept in the study of voting. Challenging the traditional idea that voters identify with a political party out of blind emotional attachment, this pioneering book explains why party identification in contemporary American politics enables voters to make coherent policy choices.

Standard approaches to the study of policy-based voting hold that voters choose based on the policy positions of the two candidates competing for their support. This study demonstrates that candidates can get a premium in support from the policy reputations of their parties. In particular, Paul Sniderman and Edward Stiglitz present a theory of how partisans take account of the parties' policy reputations as a function of the competing candidates' policy positions.

A central implication of this theory of reputation-centered choices is that party identification gives candidates tremendous latitude in their policy positioning. Paradoxically, it is the party supporters who understand and are in synch with the ideological logic of the American party system who open the door to a polarized politics precisely by making the best-informed choices on offer.

"The Reputational Premium" presents a new theory of party identification, the central concept in the study of voting. Challenging the traditional idea that voters identify with a political party out of blind emotional attachment, this pioneering book explains why party identification in contemporary American politics enables voters to make coherent policy choices.

Standard approaches to the study of policy-based voting hold that voters choose based on the policy positions of the two candidates competing for their support. This study demonstrates that candidates can get a premium in support from the policy reputations of their parties. In particular, Paul Sniderman and Edward Stiglitz present a theory of how partisans take account of the parties' policy reputations as a function of the competing candidates' policy positions.

A central implication of this theory of reputation-centered choices is that party identification gives candidates tremendous latitude in their policy positioning. Paradoxically, it is the party supporters who understand and are in synch with the ideological logic of the American party system who open the door to a polarized politics precisely by making the best-informed choices on offer.