What's Happened to the Watchful Eye?

Abstract

This article reports results of a follow-up study to my book Keeping a Watchful Eye (1990), updating it with data from the 1990s. It examines whether congressional oversight has increased or decreased relative to earlier periods, how the variables that predicted oversight behavior in the period from 1961 to 1983 worked in later years, why changes have occurred, and what they mean. It also examines whether there was something distinctive about oversight in the 1990s when Republicans dominated both chambers. Results indicate that the amount of primary-purpose oversight continues to be quite high and that the model developed in the book to explain committee oversight behavior remains remarkably effective. What has changed is a large drop in legislative hearings and meetings (where oversight behavior often occurs), something that the data show actually predates the Republican 104th Congress. However, the Republican takeover did lead to a more oppositional oversight context–to more oversight hostile to the basic goals of programs and agencies.