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Since the 1990s, members of the US House have shifted resources away from legislative functions to representational activities. We reveal this decline using an original dataset constructed from 236,000 quarterly payroll disbursements by 1,090 member offices for 120,000 unique staff between the 103rd and 113th Congresses, as well as interviews with former members and staff in Congress. These data allow us to test two plausible alternative explanations, one rooted in the centralization of legislative power over time and the other in conservatives' desires to contract government power. We show that the decline in legislative capacity is symmetrical between and consistent within both parties, contrary to expectations rooted in asymmetrical, ideological sabotage. Additionally, this divestment occurs within incumbent member offices over time, accelerates when new members replace incumbents, and persists when majority control changes. We conclude that competition over institutional control and centralization of legislative functions motivates declining legislative capacity among individual members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research study explores electoral reforms in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan introduced by the last PPP-P government in August 2011. The initiative of the government to formally allow political activities in FATA by extending the Political Parties Act 2002 to these areas is a mega political move to accommodate tribal population in the national mainstream. The formal commencement of political activities in FATA was a long- cherished demand of the tribal people for which they were waiting for a long period. The previous electoral processes and voting behaviour in FATA benefited a limited number of tribal elites. Those elites such as Maliks and lungi holders were the main political beneficiaries who monopolized politics prioritizing their selfish interests. However, the recent electoral reforms are basically a paradigm shift in the political system of those areas and that is the main focus of the present study. It also critically evaluates how the political parties incorporated the FATA related issues in their respective political manifestos and electoral slogans during the 2013 general elections which was the first party-based electoral move in FATA after the political reforms in those areas. The study contains a comprehensive account of the pre-polls political activities, terrorism and its impact on the overall electoral process and outcome of the 2013 general elections in FATA. This discourse is, however, aimed at an analysis based on perceptions about the social and political paradigm shifts in FATA especially and approaches of the federal government of Pakistan directed towards the concerned situation in the tribal localities of Pakistan generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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