Information about the Congressional Research Awards

Grant Recipients, 2008

Grant Recipients, 1978-present

Application Summary Sheet

What did grant recipients accomplish in their first year of funded research?

Information about the Congressional Research Awards

NOTE: The next deadline for applications is February 1, 2009

The Dirksen Congressional Center invites applications for grants to fund research on congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress.  The Center, named for the late Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to the study of Congress and its leaders.  Since 1978, the Congressional Research Awards (formerly the Congressional Research Grants) program has paid out $747,465 to support over 369 projects. Applications are accepted at any time, but the deadline is February 1 for the annual selections, which are announced in March.  A total of up to $30,000 were available in 2008. 

Who is qualified to apply? 

The competition is open to individuals with a serious interest in studying Congress.  Political scientists, historians, biographers, scholars of public administration or American studies, and journalists are among those eligible.  The Center encourages graduate students who have successfully defended their dissertation prospectus to apply and awards a significant portion of the funds for dissertation research.  Applicants must be U.S. citizens who reside in the United States.

The awards program does not fund undergraduate or pre-Ph.D. study.  Organizations are not eligible.  Research teams of two or more individuals are eligible.  No institutional overhead or indirect costs may be claimed against a Congressional Research Award. 

What kind of research projects are eligible for consideration? 

The Center’s first interest is to fund the study of the leadership in the Congress, both House and Senate.  Topics could include external factors shaping the exercise of congressional leadership, institutional conditions affecting it, resources and techniques used by leaders, or the prospects for change or continuity in the patterns of leadership.  In addition, The Center invites proposals about congressional procedures, such as committee operation or mechanisms for institutional change, and Congress and the electoral process. 

The Center also encourages proposals that link Congress and congressional leadership with the creation, implementation, and oversight of public policy.  Proposals must demonstrate that Congress, not the specific policy, is the central research interest. 

The research for which assistance is sought must be original, culminating in new findings or new interpretation, or both.  The awards program was developed to support work intended for publication in some form or for application in a teaching or policy-making setting.  Research produced by previous grant recipients has resulted in books, papers, articles, videotapes, and computer software. 

What could a Congressional Research Award pay for? 

Generally speaking, an award can cover almost any aspect of a qualified research project, such as travel to conduct research, duplication of research material, purchase of data sets, and costs of clerical, secretarial, research, or transcription assistance.  This list is merely illustrative, but specifically excluded from funding are the purchase of equipment, tuition support, salary support for the principal investigator(s), indirect costs or institutional overhead, travel to professional meetings, and publication subsidies.

Awards range from a few hundred dollars to $3,500.  Stipends will be awarded to individuals (not organizations) on a competitive basis. Grants will normally extend for one year.  In some circumstances, the Center will make more than one award to a single individual in consecutive years, but not more than three awards to the same person in a five-year period. 

The Internal Revenue Service requires The Center to report disbursements of more than $600 to individuals.  Accordingly, we file a 1099-MISC reporting grant payments. If potential recipients prefer to have payments made to a university foundation on their behalf, they must submit with their proposal a letter from the responsible official stipulating that no indirect or overhead costs will be charged against the grant. In other words, the entire amount must be paid out to the individual.

How do I apply? 

There is no standard application form.  Applicants are responsible for showing the relationship between their work and the awards program guidelines. 

For general information about preparing grant requests, please visit "What Grantmakers Want Applicants to Know." Not all the information posted there pertains to The Center's programs, but it is useful guidance.

Applicants must submit the original AND five copies of... 

• The Application Summary Sheet listing name, addresses (including e-mail address) and telephone numbers for work and home, Social Security number, institutional affiliation when appropriate, project title, project abstract (not to exceed 100 words), and total amount requested.
• A description of the project's goals, methods, and intended results, demonstrating clearly its importance to the awards program priorities. This is the most essential element of the application. Be sure to explain the project's significance and relationship to existing scholarship.
• A vita, including a list of publications.
• A budget indicating how funds will be spent and the extent of matching funds available, if any. 
• Graduate students must include in their submission the original and five copies of a letter of reference from the person directing their dissertation work. This letter and the copies should be sealed in a separate envelope.
• If potential recipients prefer to have payments made to an institutional entity on their behalf, they must submit with their proposal a letter from the responsible official stipulating that no indirect or overhead costs will be charged against the grant. In other words, the entire amount must be paid out to the individual.

When is the deadline? 

All application materials must be received on or before February 1, 2009.  Awards will be announced in March 2009. 

How are recipients selected? 

Proposals are judged by the significance of the research project; the project's design, plan of work, and dissemination; the applicant's qualifications; the relationship of the project to The Center's program goals and to current work in the field; and, the appropriateness of the budget request for the project's requirements. 

Grant recipients agree to... 

• Acknowledge the support given by The Dirksen Congressional Center wherever material is published or presented.
• IMPORTANT. Provide an “Impact Statement” after one year describing how the grant was spent and evaluating the impact of the research project. This 350-500 word statement will be posted on The Center's Web site.
• Furnish The Center with a copy of any book, article, or other publication incorporating research made possible by the grant.
• Cooperate in periodic studies conducted by The Center to evaluate the grants program.  This may include writing summaries of research findings for use in other Center publications.
• Permit publication of the research abstract in print and electronic formats.

Call, write, or e-mail 

Frank H. Mackaman
The Dirksen Congressional Center 
2815 Broadway
Pekin, IL 61554-4219 USA 
(309) 347-7113 
(309) 347-6432 FAX 
fmackaman@dirksencenter.org

Grant Recipients, 2008

Royce A. Carroll, Rice University, and Henry A. Kim, University of Arizona
Changing Congressional Rhetoric, Polarization, and the Breakdown of Organizational Parties in the U.S. House
$2,500

Politics in the U.S. House have been characterized in recent years by increasing polarization between parties.  This project examines one aspect of this trend:  the use of partisan rhetoric within the chamber, especially by members of the minority party against the majority.  Within the changing electoral environment, polarized legislative rhetoric may have served as a key mechanism for minority party members to establish their group status as an alternative governing majority.

Charles E. Delgadillo*, University of California, Santa Barbara
Forged between the Wars:  the Reform Alliance in Peace and War, 1919-1941
$1,000

This dissertation examines a group of senators who sought to reform the world according to progressive ideals of democracy and social justice between World War I and II.  They built an alliance with like-minded journalists in support of World War I and saw the promise of a liberal peace turn to ashes at Versailles.  During the 1920s they continued working to turn American public opinion against interventionism in Latin America.  The Nazi threat destroyed their collaboration as they disagreed whether the world could be reformed without sacrificing liberalism at home, a schism that persists among the Senate’s liberals.

Menna Demessie*, University of Michigan
Navigating Boundaries of Blackness:  Congressional Caucuses and Minority Representation of African Immigrants in the United States
$3,450

This project examines descriptive and substantive representation based on race by focusing on the saliency of ethnicity in the congressional representation of citizen Africans in the U.S.  A close analysis of the Congressional Ethiopian Caucus in Congress helps answer the question of whether or not Africans can be equally represented by black and non-black members of Congress.  This project attempts to understand how and why caucuses provide a segue into more complex analyses of ethnic cleavages, while also providing insight into how legislators think about, work for, and represent minority groups across the U.S.

Matthew J. Eshbaugh-Soha, University of North Texas
The Impact of Presidential Speeches on Congressional Committees, 1989-2004
$3,400

This project will study the impact of presidential speech-making on lawmaking at the committee stage, addressing the question, “Do presidential speeches delivered during committee consideration of legislation increase the chances of presidential success?”

William H. Ewell*, University of North Carolina
Institutional Power and Budget Outcomes in American Government
$3,140

This study will advance understanding about the role of institutions—the House, the Senate, and the president—in shaping budget and policy outcomes in the U.S.  The central theory posits that institutions with asymmetrical political power, resulting from partisan, structural, and electoral advantages, have greater influence on budget outcomes.

Brian D. Feinstein*, Harvard University
Congressional Oversight of the Bureaucracy:  Motives, Targets, and Consequences
$3,500

This project seeks to answer three questions.  First, what motivates members of Congress to engage in oversight activity? Second, what factors contribute to the level of oversight hearings that committees hold, and how do committees select their targets for oversight hearings from the universe of bureaucratic misbehavior? Third, what are the consequences of oversight hearings for the bureaucracy and for Congress?

Michael M. Franz, Bowdoin College
Congressional Oversight of Campaign Finance
$2,010

This project investigates the historical and contemporary relationship between Congress and the Federal Election Commission.  What explains the actions of congressional leaders relative to campaign finance regulators? What is the role of congressional leadership in structuring the behavior of regulators? Is congressional behavior motivated by “incumbent protection” or by “partisan divergence”?

Miler, Kristina C. University of Illinois
Changing Chambers, Changing Constituencies:  Legislative Behavior from the House to the Senate
$3,390

This research explores the impact of a change in constituency magnitude on legislators’ voting behavior.  It focuses on the 350 legislators who served in both the House and the Senate and examines whether representing a larger constituency in the Senate results in legislators moderating their voting behavior.  The project also examines how the passage of the 17th amendment affected legislators’ responsiveness to the change in their constituency when moving from the House to the Senate.

L. Marvin Overby, University of Missouri-Columbia
Discharge Petitions in the Pre-Conditional Party Government Era
$3,294

This project explores the historical development of party leadership and party discipline in the House over the 20th century using discharge petitions recently made available by the National Archives.  Among other things, this analysis will permit examination and comparison of party leadership powers across the pre-conditional party government era and the current epoch of stronger leaders in the House.

Pearson, Kathryn, University of Minnesota
Congresswomen in Pursuit of Power, 1987-2007
$1,200

This project will analyze the relationship between the steady increase in partisan polarization and in the number of women elected to the House and Senate.  It will deal with the effects of partisan and institutional imperatives on congresswomen’s leadership and legislative success.  It will disentangle the ways in which congresswomen have affected polarization between the parties and within their own parties’ priorities and practices in the House and Senate.

Eleanor N. Powell*, Harvard University
Reward and Punishment:  Career Advancement in the U.S. Congress
$3,500

This project studies the roles of party fund-raising, legislative entrepreneurship, and seniority on career advancement in Congress.  These factors have implications for representation and potential biases in public policy outcomes.

Joseph P. Renouard*, Emory University
Limits and Morality: the Emergence of Human Rights in America’s Post-Vietnam Foreign Policy
$2,079

This research will illuminate the role of key members of Congress who compelled presidential administrations and the State Department to reckon with human rights practices abroad between 1968 and 1991.  It emphasizes the political nature of human rights debates, especially congressional opposition to presidential foreign policy.  The project also highlights the role of ethnic interest groups that lobbied for human rights legislation and interventions.

Matthew C. Sherman*, Saint Louis University
Presidential Assassinations:  The Failure to Protect Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley
$2,662

This dissertation argues that the development of presidential protection was an institutional building process that emerged from two different sources from 1861 to 1907.  Family members and presidential advisors were influential in developing presidential protection policy, but the most lasting source of presidential protection emerged from the halls of Congress.

* PhD candidate

Application Summary Sheet

The fill-in application summary sheet allows you to enter information while the form is displayed by an Adobe Acrobat product and then print the complete form for your records and for submission to the Congressional Research Award Screening Committee.

Please review the Fill-in Application Instructions for software requirements and detailed instructions on usage. Caution: the Acrobat Reader does not allow you to save your fill-in application to disk.

All proposals must be received no later than February 1, 2009. Submit the complete application package to:

Congressional Research Award Screening Committee
c/o The Dirksen Congressional Center
2815 Broadway
Pekin, Illinois 61554

If you have questions, contact Frank Mackaman, Dirksen Center, at the address above or preferably by e-mail: fmackaman@dirksencenter.org. His phone number is 309.347.7113.