The Politics of Military Base Closings, 1988-2005.

Have Congress and the president successfully removed partisan politics from the base closing process? Scholars and journalists disagree after five rounds of closings; this study seeks to examine the BRAC process over the past fifteen years to determine if closure and realignment decisions are based strictly on military merit or whether other political factors, such as district partisanship, still play a role. Using the decision to close, realign, or retain a military base as the dependent variable, this project evaluates whether a range of political factors, such as committee membership, length of congressional service, and district presidential vote explain both the recommendations made by the Defense Department to the base closure commission and the final base closure decisions made by the commission itself, while controlling for non-partisan factors such area unemployment, military value, and the amount of hazardous waste produce annually. The findings are then discussed in the broader context of the congressional delegation literature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]